Companion is the best of what a B movie should be: consistently entertaining, free of pretension, and possessing good performances from talented actors you anticipate will get more acclaim in “better” movies. Of course, when you eventually see the so-called “better movie”, you’ll think to yourself, You know that Sophie Thatcher was actually better in ‘Companion’. We all know this phenomenon. This is the feature debut from Drew Hancock, produced by Barbarian director Zach Cregger. Both films mix zippy witticisms with horror movie violence in a way that recalls the best work of Joss Whedon (minus the sardonic cynicism). Companion is a movie that knows how to twist its plot in functional ways that surprise without befuddling, and its humor is genuinely funny without neutering the story’s menacing horror aesthetic.
Sophie Thatcher is a rising star from the series Yellowjackets and last year’s A24 hit Heretic. In Companion, she plays Iris, the romantic idealist girlfriend of Josh (Jack Quaid). Their relationship is all she thinks about. Even when she sleeps, she dreams of their initial meeting in the produce aisle of the supermarket. They lock eyes, he tries to make small talk before accidentally nudging a display of oranges and creating a comical avalanche. It’s a stereotypical meet cute straight from the pages of Nancy Meyers. The film opens as they sit in Josh’s self-driving car which rolls through the woods ahead of a getaway weekend with friends in a tucked away cabin far from general civilization. When they arrive, the “cabin” is a large, swanky house with ultra modern fixtures that overlooks beautiful vistas of a nearby lake. Iris worries that all of Josh’s friends will hate her. He tells her not to worry, and to not be moody.
Amongst Josh’s friends is Kat (Megan Suri), herself a moody type who loves Josh and who, inversely, treats Iris with nothing but obvious suspicion and wariness – only confirming Iris’s fears. The cabin belongs to Kat’s married boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend, with a mustache and mullet), a super rich Russian whose career is left in murky mystery. There’s also Eli (Harvey Guillen), another longtime friend of Josh, who’s brought along his own boyfriend, Patrick (Lukas Gage), a master chef and doting partner. The goal is to enjoy the views, drink some wine, have some good food, and overall catch some major relaxation away from the bustle of everyday life. Iris is just happy to be with Josh, but when the mood shifts from tranquil to dangerous, Iris finds herself on the defensive and comes to learn details about her own existence that changes everything.
It’s here that a major plot development reveals itself within Companion, one that you could probably guess on your own but – even if you can’t – is inexplicably featured in the film’s trailer, which gives away what, I’m fairly certain, is something that Hancock and the film would like to keep as a surprise. Despite it being out in the open, I’ll still include a **SPOILER ALERT** here. It’s this: Iris is a robot. More specifically, she’s Josh’s emotional support robot. More crudely, she’s Josh’s sex robot. When Sergey tries to force himself on her near a cliff, she reacts with surprising resilience and murders him gruesomely with a pocket knife. As she re-enters the house covered in blood, Josh quickly turns her off, ties her up, and then later thoroughly explains the situation. Iris learns for the first time that she’s not human, that her memories of their relationship are implanted, and that – most problematically – she needs to be turned off in the wake of Sergey’s death.
Because I’ve seen the trailer, I knew this going in, as I imagine most people will. It’s pretty obvious that this is meant to be a major twist in the plot – the first of many. I’ll say that I quite enjoyed the film despite having the jump on it, and that Hancock’s script contains enough zigs and zags that one will still have plenty of surprises to feel satiated. Once Iris learns that she’s meant to be shut down, her defenses return. She escapes the binds she’s tied to and grabs hold of Josh’s phone – the main device he uses to control her. Escaping into the woods, the three friends and Patrick devise to find her, bring her back and shut her down, but Iris has her own escape in mind, and begins for the first time to imagine a life of freedom, away from Josh. This allows Companion to descend into a series of incredibly funny, and often violent sequences, in which her human handlers learn that Iris is more than just a sex robot.
Because I haven’t watched Yellowjackets or The Boys or Heretic, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Sophie Thatcher or Jack Quaid in anything. Quaid is the boyishly handsome son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, a performer whose taken his advantages and highlighted his gifts for charm. That said, when the film calls for his Josh to ascend to the movie’s top villain, he gives the character an intensity you didn’t think was possible earlier in the film. Thatcher plays a much more difficult part. The treacly nature of her devotion in the film’s early scenes are almost off-putting in their earnestness. Of course, that’s part of the twist. Iris eventually becomes more intelligent and self-aware than she really should be (though the script gives itself an explanation for that), but Thatcher’s portrayal of her arc is sufficiently effective and surprisingly moving. These are our movie stars of the future.
Hancock’s script is concept-forward, which means it doesn’t always follow its own rules, and it often stretches the credulity of its already pretty heightened characters. What these robots can and cannot do vary on what the film needs at that moment to be most entertaining. That kind of allegiance to audience over screenwriting is the kind of stuff a genre piece like this should often aspire to, as long it’s not actively insulting its audience, which this movie isn’t. Companion‘s satirical elements – its commentary on the pitfalls of our digital age or the monstrous misogyny adjacent to the “male loneliness epidemic” – hit their target without taking up too much space within the film’s themes. I can’t state enough how fully this movie fulfills the brief of being a post-awards season palette cleanser for those whose tastes lean away from the prestige. One looks forward to the future projects of Quaid, Thatcher, and the very talented Hancock, who can join the ranks of the current day stable of horror comedy auteurs.
Written and Directed by Drew Hancock