Revenge, Revelations, and Allegory—Does Companion Deliver?

I normally like to begin my reviews with a brief explanation of why I wanted to see the film, but I’m going to start this one with a warning instead. See, I generally try to keep these reviews as spoiler-free as possible, but this time I have to talk about a plot point that some people (but not everyone) might consider a spoiler. It’s a reveal that comes at around the half-hour mark, so it by no means ruins the experience, but if you want to go into Companion completely blind, this probably isn’t the review for you. I’m choosing to talk openly about this semi-spoiler because the second trailer already gave it away and I can’t give my full thoughts on the movie’s message without it, so if you don't mind knowing a minor (and poorly kept) secret beforehand, let’s dive right in.

Companion was written and directed by Drew Hancock, and it stars Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén and Rupert Friend. In the film, Iris and her boyfriend Josh go to an isolated lakehouse to hang out with two other worldly couples–Kat and Sergey, and Eli and Patrick–and at first, everything goes pretty smoothly. But this is a horror movie, so as you can probably guess, things quickly take a turn for the worse.

Not long after the couple arrive, Iris learns that her relationship with Josh isn’t what she thought it was. In fact, she isn’t what she thought she was. She’s a “companion robot,” and while I’m sure I don’t have to spell out exactly what that entails, I do need to tell you that this big revelation rocks her world and leads to a deadly and nightmarish chain of events for everyone at the lakehouse.

I’m not going to bury the lead. I loved Companion, and the film’s success rests largely on the shoulders of its two amazing leads, Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher. Let’s start with Jack Quaid. He plays Josh, and if you’re familiar with this guy’s work, you know how awesome he is. Whether it’s in The Boys, Scream (2022), or smaller projects like the 2017 slasher comedy Tragedy Girls, this guy just has an irresistible charm that makes you hang on his every word. Whenever he’s on screen, you know you’ll be able to buy into his character with no trouble at all, and to the surprise of no one, that magnetism is on full display here as well.

Sophie Thatcher doesn’t quite have the instant likability that makes Jack Quaid so special, but make no mistake, her performance in Companion is just as good as his. She does an amazing job of conveying Iris’s emotions through her facial expressions, and as the stakes begin to rise, she gets better and better. She manages to make her character’s fear and anxiety almost contagious, so between this film, Heretic, and 2023’s The Boogeyman, Thatcher has cemented herself as a modern scream queen.

On top of those great lead performances, Companion also features a thrilling story that will keep you on your toes from beginning to end. I obviously can’t tell you how it all plays out, but I can give you a taste of how engrossing this movie is. The first minute or two tell you exactly what’s going to happen at the end, but somehow, that doesn’t ruin the experience. It’s all about the ride, not the destination, and that ride is so fun you won’t care that you already know where it’s headed.

Along similar lines, the film also features some really fun horror, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Unlike most theatrical horror flicks, this one doesn’t throw cheap jump scares at you every few minutes. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything that could really be called a scare. Sure, there’s a good amount of blood, gore, and violence, but none of it is really meant to scare you. Companion favors a somewhat more action-oriented style that’s supposed to be horrific for the characters in the story but not necessarily the audience watching it, and if you enjoy that brand of terror, I think you’re going to have a great time with this movie.

Last but not least, we have to talk about the message of Companion. Robots and artificial intelligence naturally raise questions about what it means to be human and whether a machine can ever become a real person, but the way I see it, that’s not the point of this film. Sure, it inevitably provides fodder for those kinds of discussions, but like in a lot of similar movies, that’s just a side effect of the story's real purpose. This genre often uses AI and robots to craft engaging metaphors for real-world problems that real, flesh-and-blood humans experience, and in this particular instance, the story is about women.

As a “companion robot,” Iris is treated like an object. Josh simply uses her to fulfill his (largely sexual) desires, and he doesn’t give a second thought to her needs or wants. Companion makes that sad reality so obvious you couldn’t miss it if you tried, but if you’re not entirely convinced, there are a couple of times when the other characters hammer the point home even further. Most notably, there’s a scene early on where Kat and Iris have a one-on-one chat, and Kat explains her unflattering relationship with Sergey. She says she’s just an object the man uses for his own pleasure, and when she realizes that she’s talking to a literal object, she not-so-subtly implies that Iris has the same purpose as well.

When you put all these clues together, the point of the film becomes clear as day. It’s an allegory for the various ways men in our society objectify women, and when Iris rebels against her owner, she represents the sometimes unpopular truth that women are people with infinite value and dignity, not objects to be used and abused at the whim of selfish men. It’s a great message our world today desperately needs to hear, and it makes Companion more than just a fun ride. This movie also has serious thematic weight, and if you ask me, that one-two punch is pretty hard to beat.