‘Companion’ brings a fun twist to an old story, but not much else

Movies where robots gain sentience and take control are not novel in Hollywood. Since the days of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Michael Crichton’s “Westworld,” the film industry has been churning out horror, action and sci-fi films about the day humans are defeated by the technology they’ve created. So, in theory, “Companion” makes sense — combine an age-old fear with a current struggle: dating. 

The film follows Iris (Sophie Thatcher), a “companion bot” purchased by Josh (Jack Quaid), an unmotivated, complaining, good-for-nothing, regular guy. This plotline alone has been enough to make movies for decades, but the real twist in “Companion” is a little more inspired. In a plan devised by Josh and his friend and hookup Kat (Megan Suri), he installs software in Iris to adjust her aggression setting, enabling her to kill Kat’s wealthy boyfriend so they can steal his fortune. 

It’s a creative story, one that ideally makes for a fresh take on a tried and true plotline. But writer and director Drew Hancock never lets the film’s most poignant themes take hold, steering away from any depth in favor of more action, gore and death.

Before the story really takes off, Hancock writes with a level of foreshadowing that is almost unbearable. Iris repeatedly says phrases like “I wasn’t built that way” or “My missing piece clicked into place.” Admittedly, though, Thatcher, who most recently starred in 2024’s “Heretic” alongside Hugh Grant, is a horror star in the making. Her performance is just robotic enough to fit the character. The way that Thatcher handles the vacillating emotions — and programmed intelligence levels — is a skill that’s hard to come by in genre films. The film features only one other “companion bot,” whose robotic acting only becomes clear at the end.

Once Josh and Kat’s plan is revealed, the plot begins to deteriorate, becoming unfocused. Most of Iris’s attempts to escape amount to trite horror movie moments. Even if you couldn’t predict the order of big moments, you could guess how each one would end. Apart from that, Hancock’s tale needlessly forces itself into the wrong type of horror. The sheer frequency of deaths is closer to that of a slasher, but without a central villain for Iris to capture, the deaths feel excessive.

It’s not uncommon for horror films to lose the story in the action, prioritizing shock and violence over depth instead of balancing the two. The best films of the genre — think “Get Out” or “Rosemary’s Baby” — use themes of societal pressure and cultural issues to their advantage, infusing every moment with the possibility of fiction becoming reality. 

“Companion,” however, lacks this level of nuance. The film briefly presents the issues of sexism and fragile masculinity, but fails to fully dissect them. At the climax, Josh, the film’s only straight white male, monologues about how “the world is rigged against people like him,” and the camera holds for one extra second before cutting to Iris’s sarcastic, unamused look. As a writer, Hancock refuses to trust the audience to understand — a flaw that quickly turns this thriller from stellar to forgettable. 

As a director, though, Hancock is undoubtedly clever. It’s that extra second that gets a laugh, that makes a tough scene just digestible enough to keep going. There are moments like this throughout — quick flashbacks that change when they repeat, subtle holds on Iris’s vivid facial expressions, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stabs and gunshots. For all that is overdone about “Companion,” these flashes of greatness might make it worth watching. And in the end, it’s just a fun story either way.