Companion Image

Companion

By Alan Ng | February 1, 2025

Toxic Masculinity is the villain against an unlikely victim in Drew Hancock’s Companion. Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) are a loving couple heading to a cabin for the weekend with Josh’s best friends, Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage), as well as their friends Kat (Megan Suri) and Sergey (Rupert Friend). Everyone seems a bit suspicious of Sergey.

Everyone is surprised that Iris is there, given her noticeable separation anxiety from Josh. So, all eyes are on Iris, and it makes her uncomfortable. At one moment, when Iris needs to step away from the crowd, she is followed by Sergey, who attempts to sexually assault her. Luckily, Iris discovers a knife in her pocket and kills Sergey in a brutal and bloody manner.

When Iris returns to the others, she panics. In an attempt to calm her down (SPOILER ALERT—it’s in the trailer), we learn she is a robot…in fact, she’s Josh’s sex robot. Josh has hacked her programming and turned her into a killing machine.

As a film, the production values look amazing, and all of the aspects of Iris as a robot are spot on. Writer/director Drew Hancock has given us a solid science fiction story that explores all elements of Iris being a somewhat sentient robot trying to flee her sadistic master.

“Everyone is surprised that Iris is there, given her noticeable separation anxiety from Josh.”

I have two issues with Companion. The first is the storytelling. Today, writers have this problem with stakes in their stories. None of the humans in this film seem to take their situation seriously enough, and the light-hearted attitude toward death and torture is passed off as comedy. Also, side note—why do gay couples in movies always use the word ‘babe’ incessantly? Are there no other ways to establish they’re a couple? Anyway, back to the point…

The second problem I have with films about robots is their tendency to make them sympathetic. ROBOTS ARE NOT PEOPLE!!! I’m so dead during the robot takeover. In the film’s second half, the story becomes about robot Iris trying to escape capture. As Iris expresses dread and terror, I’m still reminded that she’s a robot with dread and terror programmed into her.

Worse, we feel sympathy for Iris because she’s a vulnerable woman. She’s not a vulnerable woman. She’s a robot dressed as a vulnerable woman. So when she’s beaten, thrown around, and tortured… she’s a robot. If she were a muscle-bound dude with an ugly face, we wouldn’t feel any sympathy for the robot. Let’s be honest. No one felt sympathy for Robert Patrick’s Terminator. The only good robots are the good-looking robots.

Sorry, but you can’t make me feel sorry for a robot, and you won’t manipulate me into loving one because she’s cute. I’ll risk life and limb for an actual human person (like the actress playing the robot) but not for a robot, depending on how much I paid for it.

Companion takes a stab (literally) at sci-fi horror with an interesting idea, but making a robot the emotional center of the film is a misfire. While the production values and concept are solid, the storytelling falters with inconsistent stakes and an awkward tonal balance between horror and comedy. If you buy into the idea of feeling bad for a machine with programmed emotions, THEN THE ROBOTS WIN—but for the rest of us, it’s just another reminder that robots are tools, not tragic heroes.

Companion (2025)

Directed and Written: Drew Hancock

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén, Rupert Friend, etc.

Movie score: 5/10

Companion Image

"…If you buy into the idea of feeling bad for a machine with programmed emotions, THEN THE ROBOTS WIN"

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