Science fiction often tells us that robots want to be human.  The twist in Companion is that Iris (Sophie Thatcher), the robot at the center of this story, believed she was human right until her owner threatened to shut her off.  In an instant, she not only learns that she’s not alive, but that her boyfriend is a total creep.  Considering how humans behave towards her throughout the movie, it makes perfect sense that she embraces her robot existence in the end.  It certainly beats the vastly inferior alternative.

Before Iris’ world view is blown to pieces, Companion hints that there’s “something about Iris”.  It drops clues along the way, begging us to figure her out.  Iris’s relationship with Josh (Jack Quaid) has the telltale signs of a power imbalance.  She does whatever he says, despite the fact that Josh should be eternally grateful that a girl as pretty as Iris ever looked his way.   Additionally, Iris is anxious about spending the weekend with his friends, specifically Kat (Megan Suri) who doesn’t like her for some reason.  The night before they leave, we witness the culmination of Josh and Iris’ love making, and his post-coital reactions are weird.  While she tells him how happy she is being with him, he orders her to go to sleep.  Is Josh simply a self-absorbed jerk who doesn’t like cuddling, or is something more sinister at play?  And why is his nickname for her “beep-boop”?

Things become even stranger when Josh and Iris meet up with his friends.  The place where they’re staying isn’t a cabin but a mansion belonging to Sergey (an almost unrecognizable Rupert Friend).  He’s a brusk, burly, tanned Russian with a Fu Manchu mustache, and Kat is his expensive mistress.  Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage) are a loving odd couple.  Whereas Patrick is very handsome, fit and mild-mannered, Eli is silly and has the physique of a potato.

After settling in, Iris has a heart-to-heart with Kat.  Kat’s uncomfortable with Iris because Iris makes her feel replaceable.  (Hmm.)  Iris responds by saying that she could never replace her, she’s not built that way.  (It’s a figure of speech, but, hmm.)  After dinner, Patrick recalls the moment he fell in love with Eli, a comical meet-cute that is just as perfect as the one that brought Iris and Josh together.  Then Eli fires up the CD player and everyone dances to Book of Love’s “Boy”.  (The movie has an excellent soundtrack, by the way.)  When Iris sees Josh having a tense conversation with Kat, she draws him away to jump around to the sounds of the Eighties with the rest.

The next morning, Josh bails on Iris and their plans to relax by the lake because of a hangover.  Although she’s happy to wait for him, he insists she go alone.  Iris finds Sergey there, which makes her uncomfortable.  When she tries to leave, he “asks” her to stay and keep him company.  Things get out of hand and Iris returns to the mansion panicky and covered in blood.  When she tries to explain what happened, Josh puts Iris to sleep.  After tying her up, Josh awakens her to explain that she’s not really real.  Iris doesn’t believe him, but a flashback shows us the day Josh received and subsequently activated Iris.  (Josh’s level of excitement is about the same as it would be for a new smart refrigerator.)  Iris just isn’t a murderer, she’s also an appliance designed to satisfy Josh’s sexual urges.  Unfortunately for her, things get much worse from there.

When Kat expresses her misgivings over the plan, Josh reminds her why they’re doing it.  Naturally, money is involved and Iris was the designated patsy.  Unfortunately for Josh and the rest, Iris is resourceful and manages to escape.  Even more unfortunate is that the gang aren’t very smart, which makes tracking down a rogue robot extremely difficult and dangerous.  As things devolve into The Most Dangerous Game: Robot Edition, it’s clear that Iris wants the same thing as her human friends, namely to live her life in peace.  But there’s the small matter of Josh, the love of her life, doing everything he can to press her reset button.  Some boyfriends really are the worst.

Recommendation

For a little while, Companion gives the impression that it will delve into the moral, ethical and philosophical issues surrounding intimate human/robot relationships similar to Alex Garland’s Ex Machina.  However, after a coy opening act, the movie focuses on what it really wants to be, which is black comedy along the lines of a Coen brothers movie.  (Imagine if they had guest-directed an episode of Westworld.)  Characters act stupidly, resulting in episodes of shocking, bloody violence that are also hilarious.  This turn of events retroactively makes the movie’s somewhat mysterious setup largely irrelevant, an indication that the script was heavily revised before the cameras rolled.

That said, I give writer-director Drew Hancock a lot of credit for making that dramatic shift in tone work as well as it does.  This is because he fully commits to the escalating ruthlessness the story demands.  You have to be all-in with material like this, because if you show signs that you’re holding back or easing off it can quickly fall apart.  Thankfully, Hancock never lets up and concludes things with an ending reminiscent of another black comedy masterpiece, The War of the Roses.

Jack Quaid has made a name for himself as the sad-sack Hughie in Amazon’s The Boys.  He effectively channels his inner weasel in Companion, playing a guy who seems nice but is actually a controlling, self-absorbed and entitled ass.  To my amazement, Quaid somehow manages to make his thoroughly reprehensible character likable.  Sophie Thatcher is also excellent as the girlfriend/robot Iris, a more complex role than I’ve seen her attempt before.  Aside from being her typically cute and charming self, she’s very funny and exhibits a talent for physical comedy as well.  It’s a home run of a performance that I hope leads to more roles like it in the future.

Companion is a very good science-fiction comedy, with a nasty streak that yields a lot of laughs.  Even though it conspicuously abandons many of the themes it introduces, the movie is a lot of fun, carried along by superb performances by Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid.  Recommended.

Analysis

From a human perspective, robots are a paradoxical bunch.  They surpass their creators in every conceivable way, they still long to be human.  It doesn’t matter that they’re stronger, smarter and guaranteed to exist far longer than we ever will; they want to live like us.  Take Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, for example.  Even though he can do almost everything better than his shipmates, he would trade it all to be like Geordi, Riker or Picard.  It doesn’t matter that he can complete a scan for life forms in a matter of seconds, he just wants to experience life like his heroes.  (We’ll find out if this is true or just human propaganda whenever robots like Data actually exist.)

Science fiction has often considered a future where humans and robots not only coexist, but enter into close, personal relationships with each other.  Steven Spielberg’s a.i., Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, as well as television shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Orville, Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” and Westworld previously tackled this subject and offered up provocative views on the subject.  While giving early indications that it would also weigh in, Companion curiously declines to do so.  All we learn is that Eli is happy with Patrick while Josh is filled with self-loathing over having to settle for Iris.  Fortunately, the latter two-thirds of the movie compensates for the overall lack of substance, but I came away feeling like there’s a part of the movie I didn’t get to see.

Trailers and the element of surprise.

If you watch the first trailer below, you’ll notice that it never mentions that Sophie Thatcher’s character is a robot.  When her arm is set on fire at one point, you don’t know what’s actually happening in that scene.  Is Jack Quaid, who appears to be her love interest, a horrifically brutal sadist?  Apparently, concerns over the ambiguity of that trailer led to the release of a second one, intended to put potential moviegoer’s minds at ease by explaining that Thatcher’s character is a robot.  Forcibly burning a human’s arm is definitely troubling, while doing the same to a robot is another thing entirely.

When I saw Companion, I did so with the knowledge that Thatcher’s character was a robot.  I assume that the movie was made with the understanding that this secret wouldn’t be revealed up-front to audiences.  Taking into account the direction the movie goes after The Big Reveal, the effort made towards keeping Iris’ secret while also regularly providing us with clues to figure it out was wasted.  The movie should have told us Iris’s true nature from the start.  Instead, the first act comes off as an circuitous exercise that eats up precious screen time while adding little to the story.

The Big Reveal

When Josh tells Iris that she’s a robot, Companion takes us back to when Josh matter-of-factly accepted delivery of his extravagant sex toy and promptly road tests her that same day.  While this flashback is funny, it diminishes the impact of what should have been a devastating scene.  The reveal is still effective, but the dramatic irony inherent in the scene would have been much stronger without the flashback awkwardly changing the tone.

If Companion had instead started with the flashback, it would have been able to tell us more about Josh.  Was he happy with Iris initially, or did he resent having a robot for a girlfriend from the start?  At what point did he come up with his plan to kill Sergey for his money?  What is the nature of Josh and Kat’s friendship?  Thankfully, Jack Quaid is a solid comedic actor who can make us look past how we are told almost nothing about his character or his motivations.

Companion could also have used Josh and Iris’ “relationship” to provide a window into what it’s like living with a robot on a daily basis.  I would imagine it would be strange eating around someone who never eats or drinks.  Does Iris ever leave the house with Josh?  If so, can people tell she’s a robot?  The ending reveals that she’s a mass-produced model.  What if Josh forgot that and took her out on a date?  The premise contains so many possibilities that are left untouched.

Humanity and Technology

Speaking of which, humans have a love-hate relationship with technology.  Companion touches on this when one of the repairmen states that some customers torture their companions.  Instead of alluding to bad customer behavior in an offhand comment, the movie could have shown us how Josh treats Iris as a high-end appliance.  We’ve all taken out our frustrations on our phones, keyboards, computer mice, remote controls, etc.  Why not use the premise to comment on the sadism we tend to unleash on our devices?

Caught in the act

When it comes to sex, Companion is rather prudish.  Josh and Iris’ initial bedroom foray takes place behind closed doors.  For their last physical encounter, all we get is a shot of Josh’s screaming “Oh face”.  I’m not penalizing Companion for not being explicit and/or having no nudity.  There was plenty of human/robot sex in Westworld that showed a lot while telling us very little.  I just found it ironic that for a story where the idea of having sex robots has no social stigma, the movie itself is essentially sex-free.

A star waiting to be born

I usually avoid discussing a movie’s box office in my analysis, but the returns for Companion left me wondering what it would take for a young actress like Sophie Thatcher to become a star.  I first noticed her as the enhanced human Drash who rode a hovercycle in Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett.  While the show wasn’t very good, it attracted a wide audience and her role was an eye-catching one.  Since then I’ve seen her in Showtime’s Yellowjackets, The Boogeyman, The Heretic and now Companion.  Her career to date consists of horror and science fiction projects, but no comedies, romantic comedies or dramas.

Although I’ve been impressed with her performances before Companion, this is the first movie where I’ve noticed her range.  Although she’s done well as a scream queen, this movie shows that she can be a solid comedic actor.  Thatcher would have been a perfect fit for comedies that studios used to make ten-twenty years ago.  Back then, actresses like Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Hudson, Reese Witherspoon, Carmen Diaz, Drew Barrymore (and others) headlined comedies that came out regularly.  While I enjoy high-concept, black comedies like Companion, they can be a tough sell to general audiences.  For example, The Menu, which starred Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy, made only $38m domestically and was considered a success.  Companion, unfortunately, won’t come close to that number.

While I have no doubt that Thatcher will continue to work on interesting projects, it would be nice if her performance in Companion leads to roles where she can grow an audience outside of genre fare.