Written and Directed by Drew Hancock | 97 min | ▲▲▲ | VOD
That headline might be a little snarky. This is a fun little diversion, a sci-fi picture dipping its Philip K Dick into a horror guacamole. This though it doesn’t have much in the way of deep thoughts about the ideas it brings up, it works as a dark and satiric comedy.
I’m not going to be coy about the premise since the poster and the trailers are transparent about a reveal that comes about 20 minutes in. Going into this without the foreknowledge of this plot element might provide an added bit of joy, so if you’d prefer not to know, stop reading now — come back after you’ve seen the film.
Companion features Sophie Thatcher (Heretic) as Iris, who seems entirely devoted to her boyfriend, Jack Quaid (The Boys, Star Trek: Lower Decks) as Josh. She likes to think about the meet-cute they had at a grocery store that was transcendent in her life, which she then compares to the moment when she kills him. (Hm.)
We find them somewhere off the beaten path in Josh’s self-driving car, meeting up with good friends at luxurious modern home — chilly Kat (Megan Suri) and funny Eli (Harvey Guillén), with Eli’s pretty chef boyfriend, Patrick (Lukas Gage), and the pile’s owner, and Kat’s situationship, Sergei (Rupert Friend). Sergei’s a bit of a sleaze, a Russian dude with the evident hots for Iris. It doesn’t take Sergei long to get Iris alone, down on the beach beside the local lake, but then she does something that gets her face and clothes smeared in blood.
It turns out that Iris is femmebot. She’s Josh’s robot companion, programmed to be the perfect, loving, devoted partner to her man — but she certainly isn’t a murderbot. After the inciting incident it’s clear that there’s a lot more going on with Iris, Josh, and the rest of our (remaining) cast.
The plotting here is clever, and Thatcher brings a nice mix of fear, heartbreak, and survivalist skill to the role. My favourite part of the picture might be when she’s confronted by a police officer out on the road and in a moment of desperation chooses to switch her language settings to German. It’s not clear what the advantage might be, but it’s all part of an undercurrent of humour that comments on some of the sci-fi and horror genre tropes as well a culture of tech-bros and misogyny.
Yes, this is a movie about the way men treat women and the various models of abusive relationships, but tonally Companion would rather paddle around in the shallow end of the pool than try to provide any genuine emotional stakes, even with Iris’ sudden Rachel-like understanding of her true nature. That’s not to say it isn’t a fun time at the cinema, but it’s also a bit of a missed opportunity for something a little more memorable and less cynical.
The feeling that you’ve seen it before could bubble up in the final few minutes as the movie shirks most of its good ideas for violence in a horror vein, eventually coming around as a pale, if playful, replicant of Alex Garland’s best movie.
