Companion (2025)
Directed by: Drew Hancock
Premise: Iris (Sophie Thatcher) accompanies her boyfriend (Jack Quaid) on a weekend getaway, joining his friends at a billionaire’s estate. When the owner is murdered, a conspiracy is revealed.
What Works: Companion is the kind of movie best seen with as little foreknowledge as possible, which makes it difficult to review without spoiling the twists and surprises. But Companion succeeds both as a surprise and as a rewatchable film because the story is so entertaining, the characterizations are done well, and the themes are interesting to contemplate. The story unfolds from the point of view of Iris, whose boyfriend has gathered with his companions at a billionaire’s estate. What transpires involves murder, gender roles, and artificial intelligence. Those issues are intertwined and Companion dramatizes the applications of AI technology and what it might mean for human relationships. Companion also explores issues of moral responsibility both for the users of AI and for artificially sentient beings themselves. The performances of Companion are consistently impressive especially Sophie Thatcher as Iris. Thatcher does a lot of subtle work with her expression and posture. This is also true of Lukas Gage’s performance as Patrick, who is in a same sex relationship with another member of the friend group. The trajectory of Thatcher and Gage’s performances are rather sad. The filmmakers achieve a pathos akin to Boris Karloff’s performance as Frankenstein’s monster. As an AI story, Companion is one of the more effective explorations of the difference between organic and artificial sentience; the drama questions whether that difference matters. Jack Quaid is also well cast as the Iris’ boyfriend. Quaid has an earnest, nice guy look which the filmmakers use to misdirect the audience. Companion achieves an interesting subversion of hero and villain roles especially in comparison to similar stories and that subversion has implications not only for technology but for intergender relationships.
What Doesn’t: The internal logic of Companion is a bit tenuous. The characters come to stay at a billionaire’s estate but this particular billionaire apparently has no housekeepers or assistants or anyone else that would normally be around. The filmmakers establish rules for their story world and for limits of the technology therein but those rules are bent to serve the prefigured trajectory of the story and the characters. This becomes obvious in the story’s final stretch. The filmmakers write themselves into a narrative corner and getting out of it causes some inconsistences.
Bottom Line: Despite some issues with internal logic, Companion is a very entertaining story with strong performances and a thoughtful approach to its ideas and themes. Although some of this material is familiar from other movies, Companion is specific enough to make this AI story feel relatively fresh.
Episode: #1035 (February 9, 2025)