Companion (15)

Iris nervously accompanies her boyfriend Josh to a weekend getaway with friends, hosted at the country home of sleazy Russian businessman Sergey, who claims to have "fingers in many pots". Sergey is currently dating Josh's friend Kat and she is strangely cold and hostile towards Iris. The home is remote, situated in unspoilt wilderness several miles from the nearest neighbours, guaranteeing peace and quiet for the gang including Josh's friend Eli and his foodie boyfriend Patrick.

LondonNet Film Review

Companion (15) Film Review from LondonNet

In a few brief years, voice and gesture-prompted virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa and Gemini and artificial intelligence chatbots have become casually embedded in the fabric of our everyday lives. No longer the stuff of science fiction and fantasy, these complex learning models have become invaluable best friends that set reminders, quickly research important information, play music, make travel plans and check the weather forecast. Written and directed by Drew Hancock, Companion is a survival thriller that solders together narrative circuitry from Ex Machina and Don’t Worry Darling to imagine the next logical step in this queasy amalgamation of human and mechanised worlds: lifelike androids designed to cater to our every whim, especially carnal desires…

The picture’s fresh-faced heroine, played with gusto by Sophie Thatcher, is blissfully unaware that she is at the mercy of programming that prevents her pleasure-giving automaton from rebelling against a cruel and selfish master, who can alter her level of intelligence with one swipe of a finger on a digital screen. Hancock’s darkly humorous script barrels at full speed into horror territory in a bloodthirsty second half with predictable twists that pit Thatcher’s terrified creation, now self-aware, against cold-hearted humans intent on shutting her down with a bullet to her computer brain. The balance of power shifts between hunters and prey but our sympathy remains firmly rooted with the high-tech Stepford Wife.

Iris (Thatcher) meets Josh (Jack Quaid) in her local grocery store where his awkward and amusing attempt to flirt results in a tsunami of oranges spilling across the fruit and vegetable aisle. This embarrassing mishap only endears Josh to Iris and the pair fall deliriously in love. Iris nervously accompanies her beau to a weekend getaway with friends, hosted at the country home of sleazy Russian businessman Sergey (Rupert Friend), who claims to have “fingers in many pots”.

Sergey is currently dating Josh’s friend Kat (Megan Suri) and she is strangely cold and hostile towards Iris. The home is remote, situated in unspoilt wilderness several miles from the nearest neighbours, guaranteeing peace and quiet for the gang including Josh’s friend Eli (Harvey Guillen) and his foodie boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage). Underlying tension between the two women explodes by a lake and Josh intervenes, telling Iris to go to sleep. It transpires that Iris is an automated companion rented from Empathix Robotics, who has been programmed to protect human life at all costs.

Companion is a briskly paced battle royale between man and machine, which mines humour and discomfort from the fractious power dynamics of modern relationships. Thatcher and Quaid are well matched, the latter revisiting a Machiavellian side glimpsed in recent instalments of the Scream franchise. Hancock strips away dramatic fat from his picture’s exoskeleton to restrict the overall processing time to a sadistic and sprightly 97 minutes.

– Jo Planter