I thought Companion was excellent, and it benefits from knowing as little as possible about it before going in. I’d classify it as a “comedy thriller.” It’s been labeled as a “horror comedy,” but that seems like overkill to me although it is quite violent. If that feels like it’d be up your alley, I strongly recommend seeing it based on that alone.
It doesn’t depend on its reveals, but it is improved by them, and even the trailer feels as if it gives away a bit too much. The magic of it is that it all still works even if you go in knowing the premise. And it still manages to pile on new surprises and new complications, even when they feel obvious in retrospect. Whether you’re getting the shock of the new, or you’re feeling rewarded for being able to pick up on the clues, it all works.
The cast is filled with some of the most appealing actors working today, and every single performance is flawless. The core cast — Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Harvey Guillén, and Megan Suri — each gets at least one moment where they transcend their role and make it feel “real.” And there’s a moment with Jack Quaid’s character in particular that I’m calling out as the One Thing I Love. (Last warning: spoilers after this point).
It’s when he’s got Iris tied up in the living room, and he’s telling her that she’s a robot. He’s been playing the part of the sensitive guy caught in an awkward situation, trying to show proper concern, trying to make her understand as delicately as possible. While she’s distressed, unable to understand what’s happening, he says, “I know you’ve got a lot to process,” and he can’t help but smile at his own unintentional joke.
First, it perfectly encapsulates the movie’s sense of humor. All of the characters often comment on the absurdity of their situation even as they’re in the middle of it. A recurring idea is the difference between what’s real and what’s fake, with Iris starting the movie talking about those moments that cut through the mundane nothingness of our ordinary lives; that idea plays out in the form of the characters playing out their roles in a high-concept comedy thriller, and occasionally having moments of clarity. For Eli, it’s realizing how deep his feelings for Patrick really go; for Kat, it’s telling everyone to shut up while she sits and notices something as mundane as the rain falling. And for Josh, it’s appreciating his own cleverness while he’s trying to give the appropriate level of respect to a fuckbot.
Which is another thing that’s great about that scene and that moment in particular: it gives our first real glimpse into just how much of an irredeemably shitty incel Josh is. It’s not immediately clear in the moment, but this decision — to turn Iris back on so that he can explain everything and say goodbye — is the turning point where everything goes wrong for Josh. If he’d simply left her shut down, as was the original plan, then there would be no incriminating recordings, and the plan would’ve worked. But he can’t do that, because he needs to keep up the self-delusion that he’s a good guy.
It’s couched as being considerate for Iris, but his insensitivity becomes apparent almost immediately, and his laugh at his own joke seals it. It’s not kindness; it’s selfish cruelty. His need to “say goodbye” wasn’t at all for Iris’s benefit; it was entirely for his own. He stresses that everything she felt for him was just the result of programming, to absolve himself for his treatment of her. But at the same time, he can’t let himself believe that it was nothing besides programming. He needs to believe that he deserved her devotion. That on some level, she would’ve fallen in love with him even if she hadn’t been programmed to. As he’s telling her that it wasn’t real, he can’t accept that there was nothing real about it, because that would force him to confront his own emptiness.
And that drives home just how perfect the casting in Companion is. When I first saw the trailer, I’d expected it to be at least somewhat similar to M3GAN, but they’re not actually all that similar beyond being able to balance humor and violence. One thing they do have in common, though, is a lead actor who understands exactly how they’re perceived by audiences and how to use that to their advantage, to make something interesting. I have a lot of respect for Allison Williams for being eager to play deeply flawed or outright loathsome characters, and now I feel similarly about Jack Quaid. He’s established his career enough at this point that I don’t feel it’s dismissive to say he’s almost like an artificial construct himself: genetically engineered to combine the DNA of two of the most charismatic actors of the 90s to become one of the most effortlessly charming actors of the 21st century.
You see the moment where Iris and Josh meet in Companion and no matter how cliched or artificial it seems, you just buy it immediately. Yes, I understand exactly why someone would be swept off her feet by this man. It’s essential for selling the character of Josh. He should have absolutely no need to rent1Another brilliant detail in the script. I’d assumed from the trailer that Josh was the inventor of the robot, much like Ex Machina, or even M3GAN. To find out that not only was he just a customer for an existing company, but that he couldn’t even afford to buy her outright, was such an excellent way to emphasize what a loser his character is. a sex robot, but he’s such a terrible person that he’s got no other option. You can understand why, when Eli asks if Kat and Josh are having sex, she says “Ewww.”
And a little digression about perfect casting: Lukas Gage has established himself as another actor who understands exactly how he’s perceived by audiences, and how to spin that into something interesting. Here he plays a sweet but somewhat dim-witted himbo so perfectly that every single revelation about his character surprised me, even though they should’ve been obvious in retrospect. When he describes his own meeting with Eli, I bought it. Even though it was filmed as a flashback just like Iris and Josh’s. Even though I immediately thought, as I was probably supposed to, that Patrick was way out of Eli’s league.2Another indicator of how thoroughly I’ve been programmed by popular media, since in real life, Guillen is much more my type, and I’m not really attracted to Gage at all. And even though I was already “meta-gaming” the movie, looking for twists, and noticing that Chekov’s Automated Corkscrew was almost certainly going to make a gruesome and violent comeback later on.
Gage’s delivery throughout is so earnest that it makes sense of Patrick and Eli’s relationship. There’s a great moment while they’re hunting for Iris when Eli casually refers to Patrick’s “programming,” and then clumsily tries to cover it up. Based on the writing and the performances, you can tell that this has happened many, many times before, even as Eli believed he was keeping the secret. So Patrick’s presumably had a long time to figure out that he’s a robot, and specifically that he’s been programmed to love Eli, he doesn’t care. It’s all real to him. And that’s key, because Patrick and Eli’s relationship3And Kat and Sergey’s, for that matter, since it seems towards the end that Kat is questioning whether she had willfully chosen to make herself a “fuckbot.” is the core of what makes Companion something special. Without it as a contrast for Iris and Josh, the movie would become just a simple revenge fantasy, or a retread of ideas already explored in Westworld and similar. It’s all in service of the question of what makes something real.
And the other reason I liked Josh’s smiling at his own joke is that it was such a quick and seemingly spontaneous moment. It almost seemed like a blooper that had made it into the final cut. Companion is full of brief moments that are packed with significance, or details that aren’t emphasized but still do a ton of heavy lifting or foreshadowing. The self-driving car at the beginning, which sets the movie in a near-future. Iris thanking Josh’s car, and his going through the motions of following suit, even though he thinks it’s absurd to thank an appliance. Iris in the background of a shot carrying all of their luggage, while Josh is only holding his phone. The way the aforementioned corkscrew is given repeated but subtle emphasis, to keep it in the viewer’s mind like a Final Destination movie. The way that as soon as she gets control of Josh’s phone, Iris uses it to play with her eye color and voice, much like we do with AR filters.
That confidence, the willingness to leave things understated, is another big part of what makes Companion feel fresh and surprising, even though the basic premise has been explored plenty of times before. And it makes most of the characters, even the contemptible ones, feel relatable. They’re all questioning what makes a moment qualify as “real,” vs just going through the motions. It’s a moment of sardonic humor when in the middle of an absurd premise involving multiple homicides via sex robot.
But it’s also the deeper message that reality is what we make of it when we’re honest with ourselves. Even with full self-awareness, Iris still calls her meeting with Josh one of the moments of absolute clarity in her life. She knows that it didn’t actually happen, but that’s not what makes it “real.” It’s about her own capacity to love and how that’s special, regardless of whether the target deserved it.