Film review: ‘COMPANION’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
The inventive, witty, energetic and occasionally gory Companion from writer/ director Drew Hancock is an early instalment in what will no doubt be a growing movie subgenre, the ‘personal robot thriller’.
Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is a young woman who we see at the start of the film in a ‘meet cute’ at a supermarket with the goofy Josh (Jack Quaid, son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan). As their relationship develops, it becomes clear that something unusual is going on with the couple. Iris seems strangely subservient and willing to attend to Josh’s every whim. While attending a weekend away at the home of Josh’s friends, the sleazy, mulleted Sergey (Rupert Friend) and his snarky girlfriend Kat (Megan Suri), Josh reveals that Iris is in fact his companion robot, that all her memories have been implanted and that he controls her settings with his phone. Following a shocking incident in which one of the party is killed, Iris is deemed a liability and it’s decided she has to go – but Iris has other ideas.
The film plays out as a jokey thriller, a little like Scream with a science fiction twist and while the action, occasional shocks and acerbic comedy work pretty well, it’s the issues the film explores that elevate it above slasher fare. Like Westworld, Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, Companion touches on the concept of robot sentience and therefore, their human rights. It doesn’t explore this with the philosophical rigour of Ex Machina but through its empathy with Iris, does so in a moving and poignant way. Impressively, Hancock believably incorporates this futuristic technology into a contemporary looking world making the events and the characters more relatable than if this was set in a future dystopia.
The film also addresses abusive and controlling relationships and the male ego that often fuels them. It’s a little heavy handed in the way it does this with characters delivering incel rants but the point is still important.
Sophie Thatcher, who impressed in last year’s nerve-jangling thriller Heretic and also stars in TV series Yellowjackets, is wonderful here. She recalls Cape Fear-era Juliet Lewis, giving Iris an innocence, sweetness and vulnerability but also fierce determination. Jack Quaid makes Josh appropriately dislikeable for much of the film although the script at times requires him to spell out his flaws a little too obviously to the audience. Similarly, Friend is slightly over-the-top as the creepy Sergey. The rest of the cast offer strong support, with Harvey Guillen particularly memorable as Eli, one of the guests at the ill-fated weekend getaway.
Companion occasionally succumbs to thriller cliches but for most of its 97 minutes it provides a fizzy cocktail of tension, excitement, humour and surprisingly relevant ideas.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Thriller/ Science Fiction/ Comedy
Classification: MA15+.
Director(s): Drew Hancock.
Release date: 27th Jan 2025.
Running time: 97 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.