You can't blame them - there's no point in your movie having a great twist if nobody is going to go see it, and without knowing the twist there's not a lot obviously going on you can sell Companion with. But it does mean that talking about the movie in any kind of detail is going to require spoilers, which is a shame because the reveal is a pretty good one (even if wikipedia does give it away).
Without spoiling anything then, here's what you need to know: Josh (Jack Quaid) and Iris (Sophie Thatcher) are heading out to a fancy cabin in the woods for a getaway weekend with friends. Kat (Megan Suri) is friends with Josh, not a fan of Iris, and is the mistress of Sergey (Rupert Friend) a dodgy Russian businessman who owns the house (and everything around it, including a lake).
Also staying are Patrick (Lucas Gage) and Eli (Harvey Guillen), who get to watch on as Sergey hits on Iris and generally sleazes up the place. Kat doesn't seem to be having all that much fun either. The vibes are bad; it doesn't take long to realise there's a good reason for that.
Last paragraph without spoilers, so: what follows is more of a "crime scheme gone wrong" thriller than a "cabin in the woods" slasher, though there are a few gory moments. Some characters turn out to be arseholes, some are more decent than they seem, some don't stick around long enough to go either way. It's fun rather than edge-of-your-seat gripping, though there are a number of good twists and once it gets going it doesn't slow down: it's like a lightweight Fargo where you cheer on the character you'd least suspect.
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Okay: Iris is a robot, and she's been jailbreaked to do something she's not meant to (not sex, she's all good in that department) so Josh can get something he wants. Once she's done what he wants, she's disposable: the rest of the film is about her trying to protect her off switch, only because she's a robot there are ways to hit that switch beyond just shooting her - and in fact, because Josh needs the whole thing to look like an accident, he has to shut her down like you would any other malfunctioning item. No suspicious bullet holes or tire marks.
It's a smart tweak to an otherwise familiar genre, and it allows the story to go all-in on Josh's barely concealed misogyny. It's not robo-shaming - there are other plot elements that make it clear that robot-human love is just fine so long as you're not an abusive whiny creep - and it makes for a nice explanation as to why Kat dislikes Iris. Gold-digging girlfriends are going to have a tough time competing with sexbots, after all.
Writer / director Drew Hancock has come up with a solid noir thriller that's also a smart science fiction story (though don't expect any examination of how sexbots have changed wider society - the action here stays very close to home) with a touch of horror mixed in. It's a tight, exciting ninety minutes, but what really lifts it over the top are the performances.
Quaid artfully walks the line between caring boyfriend and thoughtless creep at first, then goes all in when the extent of his boorish selfishness is revealed; Thatcher all but carries the film as she goes from loving partner to scared victim to determined survivor. She makes every step of Iris' wild emotional (yes, really) journey seem plausible - which is in no way reassuring for anyone watching who might be in the market for a sexbot in a few years time.
- Anthony Morris
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