Robotic companion Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is whisked away by boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) for a weekend that descends into bloody chaos.
From the genre-defining picture of Maria and her chrome curves in 1927’s Metropolis, to Jude Regulation’s Gigolo Joe in A.I. Synthetic Intelligence, and Ana de Armas’ sultry Joi in Blade Runner 2049, scorching robots have by no means been out of fashion. However with the rise of AI chatbots able to profess their love, the futurism of Spike Jonze’s Her appears nearer than ever earlier than. The subsequent logical step is Companion, by which even your android companion’s intelligence degree may be customised by an app in your telephone. God assist us.
Companion, produced by the crew behind Barbarian, opens with a prologue that’s a neat homage to a fembot basic, 1975’s The Stepford Wives, and its well-known grocery store sequence. Iris (Heretic’s Sophie Thatcher), incongruously styled all through as a mid-century doll with a miniature beehive hairdo, walks dreamily by way of an aisle pushing a procuring trolley. She locks eyes with Josh (a smarmy Jack Quaid), who charmingly upsets a show of oranges. It’s the cutest of meet cutes, and in voiceover Iris describes the blissful expertise of discovering that means in her life the day she met him, surpassed solely by the day she killed him.
Companion actually will get entering into its extra sprightly and stunning second half.
For these irritated on the poster and trailer revealing Iris’ bionic biology, cool your jets. The movie doesn’t precisely hold it a secret, with the script throwing in observations about Iris being “constructed that method” and a “lovely creation” from the start. She definitely appears like an outsider within the luxurious lakeside lodge the place she and Josh have been invited by his mates for the weekend. It’s owned by seedy Russian sugar daddy Sergey, performed by an enjoyably daft Rupert Pal with a perma-tan and mullet.
The place Companion actually will get going is in its extra sprightly and stunning second half. Pivoting away from the plain reveal of Iris’ origins, the movie turns into a noir-ish chase by way of the woods with $12 million money at stake whereas Iris makes a bid for freedom from her captor. There’s some humour alongside the way in which, largely by way of What We Do In The Shadows’ Harvey Guillén as Josh’s buddy Eli, partnered with an endearing Lukas Gage as his himbo boyfriend.
Though on the outset it looks as if author/director Drew Hancock is aiming for his personal entry within the latest wave of ‘patriarchy is evil’ darkish comedies with a sci-fi bent, like Don’t Fear Darling or Blink Twice, it’s an odd reduction that Companion isn’t actually about something extra severe than realising your boyfriend is a controlling arsehole.
Entertaining if inconsequential, Companion is buoyed by stable central performances from actors that appear keenly conscious that it’s all only a little bit of bloody enjoyable. Viva la robotic revolución!
