{"id":12641,"date":"2025-02-02T18:24:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T02:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/?p=12641"},"modified":"2025-02-02T18:24:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T02:24:51","slug":"companion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/?p=12641","title":{"rendered":"Companion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last year, we got a little movie called Strange Darling<\/em>. Quite notably, the promotion for that movie told us basically nothing, except that it was “from the producer of Barbarian<\/em>.” Never mind that Strange Darling<\/em> had a tenuous connection with the 2022 sleeper hit, invoking the title sent a clear message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbarian <\/em>had a famously vague advertising campaign, and justifiably so. Upon the film’s release, it became immediately clear that even the most basic and superficial plot details would turn out to be massive spoilers. It was borderline impossible to discuss the movie beyond “this is really awesome, you should go see it before anyone spoils it for you.” If they could get away with it, I guarantee you that every single studio executive would make every single film in the exact same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here we are with Companion<\/em>, which (unlike Strange Darling<\/em>) did have the direct involvement of Barbarian <\/em>writer\/director Zach Cregger. He’s a producer here, with writer\/director Drew Hancock making his feature debut. That said, there’s no doubt whatsoever that Cregger’s fingerprints are all over this one. Only this time, the advertisements already gave the game away. And honestly, that basic knowledge of the premise is a huge part of why I wanted to cover it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See, what we’ve got here is a standard slasher premise set in a remote cabin. This is where we meet Josh (Jack Quaid), his girlfriend (Iris, played by Sophie Thatcher), and all of Josh’s preening rich asshole idiot friends. I won’t go into details, but it turns out that Josh is a domineering asshole boyfriend, one thing leads to another, and soon Iris is fighting and running for her life while Josh and all of his friends are trying to kill her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big Act One twist the commercials and trailers have already given away is that Iris is a robot. She was literally built and programmed to be Josh’s girlfriend. Sure, this is hardly the first — nor will it be the last — time we see a horror slasher about an AI companion (M3GAN <\/em>and the failed Child’s Play <\/em>reboot both come to mind). But a horror slasher in which the AI is the protagonist… that’s something we don’t see quite as often. And it changes things in a big way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start with, there’s the issue of toxic masculinity, something Cregger already dealt with to harrowing extent in Barbarian<\/em>. Josh is a misogynist asshole who resents being lonely and thinks he’s entitled to a girlfriend he can boss around and treat like an inanimate sex object. So far, so standard. But when the girlfriend in question is quite literally a sex object, that changes the equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless the girlfriend possesses sentience and free will, in which case the difference is effectively moot. But if the girlfriend is limited by her programming in such a way that she physically can’t lie or walk away or refuse an order even if she wants to, there’s a question as to whether she has free will at all. And of course that brings us to the myriad ontological questions as to whether Iris’ thoughts and emotions and wants are any less real just because they were put there by Josh or some programmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to be clear, this isn’t a situation like Alicia Vikander’s character in Ex Machina<\/em> — Iris doesn’t know she’s a machine at the outset. She doesn’t look or act like a machine in any obvious way. She’s effectively human in every way that matters, except for how the other characters treat her. Regardless of whether Iris is a robot locked into her programming, or if she’s a flesh-and-blood young woman locked into her mental\/emotional hangups, the outcome is the same: She’s stuck in an abusive relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until she finds a way out. Things only get tougher from there. And bloodier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of which, there’s the additional thorny topic of accountability. It’s hard enough to litigate instances of sexual assault (and yes, the film goes there, CONTENT WARNING<\/span>) between humans — what happens when someone tries to sexually assault a robot with Iris’ robust programming? What happens if the robot tries to defend itself? What happens if a robot is programmed by its user to commit a crime? Who’s responsible? Who’s at fault?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hell, for that matter, is it even possible to rape or murder a machine, especially a machine specifically built for sex? What about a machine with sentience? And now we’re right back to the question of just how sentient and self-capable Iris is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s also worth noting that Iris herself has some alarmingly profound insights regarding the nature of love and devotion. The kind of poetic insight that wouldn’t be expected from any programmer or machine. How strange that an artificial being should be able to teach us something about ourselves, but that’s really what art is all about, isn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As intelligent and gory as the movie is, I want to stress emphatically that the movie is also funny as hell. It certainly helps that we’ve got a writer\/director who made his name in television comedy, in addition to the proven comedic talents of Jack Quaid and Harvey Guillen in a supporting role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most importantly, the film takes a page or two from the modern masters of horror\/action\/comedy, Radio Silence. I’m specifically referring to Ready or Not<\/em>, another movie based around the conflict of a competent young woman running from the rich self-important dumbfucks trying to kill her. The premise is just as funny here, and works in many of the same ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, are there any nitpicks? Yeah, and they’re pretty much all in the third act. Or the fourth act, depending on how you want to count. I’m specifically referring to the last ten minutes, which are loaded with contrivances and plot conveniences, all leading up to a coup de grace that’s pitifully lame by the standards of the previous kills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, that last-minute stumble doesn’t take much away from everything that made Companion<\/em> so fascinating. It’s nothing short of genius how the film examines artificial intelligence and feminist themes in such a way that they dovetail together in such an exciting and thought-provoking way. Sophie Thatcher once again solidifies her scream queen bona fides, Jack Quaid keeps proving himself a versatile talent, and everyone involved with this from the top down came ready to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s an intelligent and bloody romp, a superbly balanced horror\/comedy. Definitely give this one a look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engaging<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":734,"featured_media":12643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4719,4718,2596,4622,4716,2676,4352],"class_list":["post-12641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-companion","tag-harvey-guillen","tag-jack-quaid","tag-lukas-gage","tag-megan-suri","tag-rupert-friend","tag-sophie-thatcher"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/20250202_182149-scaled-e1738549480740.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3uOb3-3hT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12644,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12641\/revisions\/12644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}