February 11th, 2025

It’s hard to tell if I’m meant to give up what could be a spoiler in that title alone. The first fifteen to twenty minutes of ‘Companion’ lead you to believe that this couple is embarking on a fun cabin weekend with some friends. I honestly can’t tell how much this movie really wants you to believe that our protagonist Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is just a regular human girl given the marketing behind this movie. But it is pretty swiftly revealed that she’s a robot companion bot that her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) purchased for himself. This reveal plays more to her than it does to the audience as she was unaware of this fact and believed herself to be a functioning person with free will and the works.

The film quickly pivots this way and that as Iris has been pushed to defend herself from an unwanted sexual encounter from the weekend’s host Sergey (Rupert Friend) and will soon be deactivated by the company that made her. She manages to wriggle free and the comedy of errors that follows as the four remaining friends try to track her down is filled with punchy humor and genuinely surprising twists.

The main thrust of the movie is the freewill of Iris or lack thereof. How much of a person is a robot and the film does a good job of getting you to root for her and believe that she is capable of making her own choices. Nested in this is the metaphorical lack of agency that most women find themselves in many relationships. Early on before the reveal Josh tells Iris “Don’t be all weird and mopey”, and horrifyingly she nods in agreement, as if this kind of dialogue is acceptable for any relationship. As Iris wrests control of her life away from Josh she finds herself imagining living her own life under her own rules.

It’s capably written and performed, but occasionally it does plod along with the subtleness of a rampaging bull. And it is a little concerning that while this film, and many like it are concerned with female autonomy they are often written by and directed by men. That’s not to say I don’t think they can be but it does give pause that when thinking about creating a female centric work writers like Alex Garland with ‘Ex Machina‘ and now Drew Hancock with ‘Companion‘ immediately go to a place of subjugation. I would love to see a woman tackle a film like this, particularly in a world where we have Coralie Fargeat, Arkasha Stevenson, and Julia Durcournau it seems like a layup for any of them.

But still, Companion is fun, witty, sharp, and Jack Quaid loves playing a rich, whiny, entitled white boy. I hope to see more from both Jack and Sophie, as they both shine in their own way. In the end ‘Companion‘ is like a slightly less effective and original ‘Bodies, Bodies, Bodies’ and it’s hard to hold that too much against it.

3.5/5