On January 30, Ukrainian cinemas started showing the psychological thriller with horror and even comedy elements «Companion», starring «Boys» Jack Quaid, as well as Lucas Gage and Sophie Thatcher, who we recently saw in «Smile 2» and «Heretic» accordingly. If you haven’t watched any trailers for the movie and don’t know what the main character’s peculiarity is, we warn you that the text reveals this feature, so to avoid any spoilers, it’s better to read it after watching the movie.
Pluses:
a fascinating story about the relationship between a human and an android endowed with artificial intelligence; harmonious multi-genre — there is room for suspense, surprise, and humor; the actors did a good job with their roles;
Minuses:
plot conventions and dubious episodes in the course of the story (especially striking is the revealing moment with Lucas Gage's character in the final act), which spoils the overall impression;
«Companion»
Genre psychological thriller, horror
Director Drew Hancock
Starring Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lucas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Gillen, Rupert Friend, Matt McCarthy, Jabuki Young-White, Mark Menchaca
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb, official website
Josh and Iris met in a typical supermarket. She’s a pretty brunette with beautiful eyes who comes to the fruit section. He — a friendly, a little embarrassed and clumsy guy who can’t seem to make out the oranges nicely arranged on the counter. When their eyes locked, it was obvious that it was love at first sight. The kind of love that is sung in songs and made into fabulous romantic movies.
And so Josh and Iris (his name is written first for a reason) arrive at the luxurious country house of a certain immensely wealthy Russian to have fun with their friends. It is noticeable that the girl is a little nervous, but her caring boyfriend convinces her that everything will be fine. And so it would be, if not for an unfortunate, tragic accident (or was it?) that occurred on the shore of a picturesque lake near the estate. The situation is complicated by the fact that Iris is a robotic companion, and she doesn’t even know it.
With AI becoming more and more relevant in our everyday lives, films with synthetic humanoid girls have become more frequent lately. We recall «Archive» (2020) with Theo James and Stacy Martin, and don’t forget about the frantic M3GAN (2022), which will return to screen this summer. We can also recall last year’s «Subservience» with Megan Fox, but reluctantly because the former «Transformers» seems to have finally given up filming in sane projects.
In his debut feature film, director and screenwriter Drew Hancock not only manages to ask the difficult moral and ethical questions that the classics of science fiction have asked themselves and their readers/viewers, but also to produce a high-quality entertaining movie.
There is also room for audience empathy (the Voight-Kampff test will be passed with flying colors), as Hancock skillfully arranges the pieces on the chessboard. And for surprise because he successfully tries to play with the viewer’s expectations. And for suspense because at times the story turns into something akin to a bloody horror movie. And even for laughs — what is worth, a quirky and damn funny scene when an android programmed to tell only the truth switches to German so that the police officer cannot expose him.
All in all, it’s good entertainment, backed by an extremely relevant topic of human interaction with AI and confident performances.
The local story clearly hints at today’s rapid development of high technology and human dependence on it, which makes it increasingly difficult for us not only to make our own omelet, but also to socialize and communicate in real life. Live emotional communication is being replaced by messengers or chatbots. We look for love on dating sites or social media, where success is measured by the number of followers and likes. We have forgotten how to look beyond the screens of our smartphones and build lasting relationships. Even more importantly, we’ve forgotten how to start them.
Thus, to develop the theme of the film, at some point the need of a society incapable of communication for such «human» androids like Iris will reach its peak and converge with the possibility of creating such creatures. This, in turn, will cause many contradictions related to the moral and ethical aspect. Having no freedom of choice as such, working exclusively for the comfort and pleasure of their masters, potential «carriers» of the conditional Skynet can come to an obvious conclusion. An apocalyptic «machine uprising» will be inevitable (an interesting look at this eternal conflict was featured in last year’s «Mars Express»).
Although the direct references to the «Judgment Day» is hard to ignore, the creators of «Companion» are far from straightforward in their spirit «Terminator» (by the way, «Terminator 2» will be released in limited release on February 6, so if you have the opportunity to watch the immortal classic on the big screen, keep it in mind).
First, the androids were a priori put in a miserable position, doomed to eternal service. This is the reason the local heroes get into trouble because Iris is so eager to please Josh that she simply cannot let anything happen to her. The absurdity of the situation is telling. Secondly, we need to understand that we have to serve a human being, and people are sometimes prone to bad deeds and mistakes. In this context, it makes sense to talk about role reversal — the lame villainous chaser will no longer be an indifferent machine, like Cameron, but a Homo sapiens.
The toxic and abusive relationship shown in the film will have a logical development and inevitable contradictions. And here, the question of which of the opposing parties is actually a human being and which is only pretending to be one will come to the fore.
Specifically, in «Companion», pretending doesn’t make sense for Quade’s character. With the help of Iris, he can successfully bypass the candy-and-flower period when everyone is trying to show off. Now «meeting» with a beauty can take place amidst the mess of a bachelor’s home in home shorts and a T-shirt while cutting your toenails. And you can count on sex on the first date. What girl doesn’t dream of such a gentleman?
Hancock manages to put all these not at all frivolous nuances into a surprisingly easy-to-understand, interesting, and sometimes downright funny movie, not burdened with high-minded monologues like Hauer’s «Tears in the rain» not a particularly entertaining story, as in an ultra-serious one «Ex Machina» Alex Garland. Saying what fans of science fiction have heard many times before, the film’s authors are trying to go their own way.
Despite certain conventions, when fair questions may arise about the script decisions, «Companion» turns out to be a completely engaging story that stands out against the sterile, seemingly generated by a soulless artificial intelligence of stories that have filled modern screens.
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