MA 15+, 97 minutes
3 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
If you catch the opening credits here, a cryptic producer mention ‘from the studio that brought The Notebook’ pops up on screen. It was a film released decades ago that over time has become a byword for over-the-top romance. At least there were terrific performances from Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling as the lovers, to offset the treacly sentiment.
Companion is also about the search for a perfect companion but forget all that romantic stuff. This smart movie with its futuristic vision of the way relationships might evolve in a future enhanced by artificial intelligence, is into subversion. Writer-director Drew Hancock, who has worked in comedy till now, took a calculated U-turn into horror while reassessing his career during covid. He has come up with a sharp, articulate, and occasionally quite vicious take on gender relationships, and in particular male attitudes towards women. The movie also reminds me of that stunning, horrifying revenge flic, Promising Young Woman.
Designed and programmed to fulfil human needs, adjustable via app on the home screen
It’s Hancock’s first feature. Billed as sci-fi but it is more like a mash-up of genres entertaining the speculative possibilities of AI, not implausible when it seems to be operating among us already. In short, Companion opens up the possibilities of accessory lovers, designed and programmed to fulfil human needs, adjustable at any time through a Bot App on the home screen, and easy to control with simple instructions.
We start out with a romantic couple, Josh (Jack Quaid, son of Meg Ryan and Dennis) and Iris (Sophie Thatcher, currently in Heretic), who arrive at an isolated luxurious mansion on a lake set in heavily wooded grounds. Another version of the cabin in the woods. Their host is a shady Russian called Sergey (Rupert Friend). Other guests at the weekend house party include Sergey’s girlfriend Kat (Megan Suri), jovial Eli (Harvey Guillen) and his smooth-faced partner Patrick (Lukas Gage).
They are all are out of earshot, out of reach of the law and, I would have thought, out of range too. Hey, their mobiles would need to connect with the internet despite the remote location for the plot to function, but this issue doesn’t arise.
Iris is feeling nervous, shy perhaps, but Josh is reassuring. Smile and act like you’re having a good time. Innocuous advice, or is it? She always does as she’s told, because she is compliant, undemanding and designed to give Josh pleasure. In a word, docile. Whenever she isn’t, all Josh has to do is say ‘go to sleep, Iris’. Just like in an early scene where he rolls off her the moment the sex is over.
Sharp, articulate and funny, and occasionally vicious
Unfortunately for Iris, Josh doesn’t follow her down to the lake for breakfast the next morning, Sergey does. One thing quickly followed another after he asked her to apply sunscreen to his back and shoulders, and the burly Russian was soon dead on the ground after trying to rape her. When she returns to the house soaked in blood, Josh hesitates to de-program her and she escapes into the woods, with his mobile in hand. As she works her way around the bot app, she finds how to boot her intelligence up from 40% to 100%. There was no point, it seems, in a companion robot being completely docile, a sex toy aka ‘f..k butt’, or emotional support robot designed for pliant sex, being smart. And if she ever got out of hand, owner Josh could always resort to the re-set button located behind her ear. Iris may be a step up from the notorious inflatable doll, but this is no date movie.
Or is it? Maybe it is. I’m not sure I can tell anymore. There is some fun to be had, that’s for sure. Hancock’s script is smart, emotionally intelligent and often even rather funny. Comedy is, after all, his domain.
There are some short DV-type scenes in which Josh explains his motivations, like he’s a great guy but has little to show for it. It transpires that ‘nice guy’ Josh, a man- child type, is not so nice after all. When he’s exposed and tries out his fallback position promising to become the boyfriend Iris deserves so they can live happily ever after, no one, not even his sex bot is prepared to listen. At journey’s end, this tale full of twists and turns, is surprisingly entertaining.
First published in the Canberra Times on 31 January 2025. Jane’s reviews are also published by Rotten Tomatoes