First things first: Companion, writer-director Drew Hancock’s wickedly clever little horror thriller, has a key storytelling twist that needs to be addressed in order to discuss the film meaningfully.

 

And it does not come at the end of the movie but near the beginning, so it’s not so much a spoiler as it is a level-set. (The juicy reveal is also given away in the movie’s trailers, so you very well may already know what’s coming.)

 

Now that everyone’s on the same page — if you don’t want to know, go see it and come back here after! — Companion confronts today’s realities of technology and AI with a darkly comic eye and a sly curl in its lip. It’s as tech-minded as an episode of Black Mirror, but one of its tricks is the way it subverts its perspective to turn the audience against the humans and put them on the side of the androids.

 

Yes, androids. That’s the first of several swerves, and it comes early in the story after plucky Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and slightly sheepish Josh (Jack Quaid) have met cute at a grocery store and fallen deeply in love. They’re off to one of Josh’s friends’ secluded homes for a weekend getaway, and Iris is nervous that Josh’s friends don’t like her and are unfairly cold toward her.

 

Upon arrival, Iris’ fears are loosely confirmed when Kat (Megan Suri) opens up and tells her she makes her feel “replaceable.” Why replaceable, of all descriptions? That’s when the audience learns what Josh and his friends already know: Iris is a robot. Well, a sex-bot, if we’re being frank, and we are, because Hancock definitely is.

That little bit of information recontextualises what has happened up to this point in Companion, and it changes everything that comes after. But it’s not the only twist or surprise up Hancock’s sleeve, as he packs a wallop in his devilish feature film debut.

 

There’s a murder, a scheme, and a few more surprises that are too good to give away. Hancock’s playful script and tight execution play with general concerns about AI and our modern impulse to ignore the user agreements but flip them so we’re the bad guys. It’s like Terminator 2 for sex-bots, if the sex-bots were the ones doing the storytelling.

 

Thatcher (Heretic, TV’s Yellowjackets (new season this week, by the way!!!)) plays an engaging hero whose humanity is more than a switch that gets flipped. She’s a doting romantic who becomes a fierce survivalist when she needs to, and Thatcher is a tough, smart, relatable lead in what feels like a star-making role.

 

And Quaid is appropriately smarmy as the story unfolds. He transforms from shy and sweet to menacing and controlling, his weakness and fragility always front and centre. Companion weaponises his frail ego and turns it into a damnation of modern masculinity: In a world where our partners are customisable, what other aspects of ourselves are we losing?

 

As friends in the group, Lukas Gage and Harvey Guillén make appealing sidekicks — Gage, with his Ken doll-like blankness, is especially effective — and Rupert Friend is just over-the-top enough as a wealthy sleazebag with a tacky Russian accent.

 

 

 

Companion is a sharp, sleek thriller with a hip, modern edge to match its retro-chic aesthetic. Its twist gets you in the door, but it’s only the beginning of how it gleefully, deliciously spins viewers in circles and leaves them thinking about the coldness of our modern world.

 

An unexpectedly fun ride. 8/10

Boluwatife Adesina
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Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.