Companion

Directed by Drew Hancock

Starring Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Harvey Guillén

Released January 31, 2025, in theaters (available on VOD February 18, 2025)

Some twist-reliant films, like Phantom Thread or The Sixth Sense, beg to be watched again once the twist is revealed. The unexpected plot turn retroactively colors everything that came before and becomes a key that unlocks the film. Others, like Barbarian, take you on a roller coaster ride that can only be optimally experienced once. While it’s tempting to deem one tack better than the other, it does a disservice to successful films of the latter sort to discount the giddy adrenaline rush that a good ziggedy-zaggedy, where-the-fuck-is-this-going movie can provide.

Companion—co-produced, not incidentally, by Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger—aims for the latter but can’t get enough momentum going to truly thrill. The film follows Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and her boyfriend (Jack Quaid) to a remote house for a weekend getaway with a few close friends. After a murder in self-defense, the weekend goes awry. To say how would spoil too much, but let’s just say that pretty much everybody winds up dead by the end.

The movie’s biggest reveal happens blessedly early, since one of the trailers all but gives it away. (If you want to remain unspoiled, turn back now!) Iris, the film’s title “companion” and unambiguous hero, is a sex robot. Horror It-girl Thatcher gives it her all to unseat Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina as the GOAT; but unlike that other film about sex robots, Companion has nothing much to say about the complex ethics of artificial intelligence. The film takes Iris’s humanity thoroughly for granted, asking the audience to unironically root for her at every step. (This feels especially sinister in this particular moment, as tech companies try to shove Gen AI down our throats at every opportunity, but I digress.)

Unsettlingly automatic sympathy for the machines aside, Companion might still have nailed the broad satire it aims for if the performances worked across the board. Harvey Guillén’s impeccable comedic timing and talent for mining unexpected emotional depth mark him as a standout. Thatcher’s always watchable presence goes a long way towards keeping this film as diverting as it is. The perpetually smarmy Quaid, on the other hand, struggles to be charming or chilling enough to make his character work. As the other (surprise) robot in the room, the usually reliable Lukas Gage gives us nothing. Rupert Friend, as a crazy rich Russian with a Count Orlok mustache, is on another planet. Megan Suri is given so little to work with that it’s hard to fault the actress.

Without the right ensemble to sell it, the script’s thin characterizations and evenly meted out revelations grow old quickly. Writer-director Drew Hancock’s script isn’t sharp or clever enough by half to coast on plot alone. As a stylist, Hancock doesn’t push the bright, plasticized aesthetic far enough to make an impact. Iris’s costuming, for example, nods to the midcentury housewife (or the 2020s trad wife). But her styling is a gesture, not a statement. This, ultimately, sums up Companion‘s attitude toward anything interesting about the film’s inherently intriguing set-up. Hancock does just enough to signal that he understands the power dynamics at play, but he stops short of suggesting anything remotely provocative.

As the film wears on, this becomes frustrating. At a completely reasonable 97 minute runtime, there’s no reason that the movie should drag. Yet it eventually wears out its welcome as it throws mediocre twist after mediocre twist at the audience. Apart from Thatcher’s virtuosic performance, there’s not much to recommend Companion.