Companion: A Crafty, Twisty Whodunit... Or Should That Be Whatdunit?

By Chris Knight

Rating: A-

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes film critics have their reviews half-written before the movie starts.

Recently, I had Venom: The Last Dance pegged prior to its opening credits. Back in 2013, I was so certain of Movie 43 (one of the greatest casts in one of the worst films of all time) that I went in with a notepad and wrote my review during the screening. Came out and filed it; done.

Which brings me to Companion. Trailers had me convinced this was going to be a cheesy, schlocky, unimaginative blood-soaked story about a renegade robot sex doll with homicidal tendencies. I was going to open my critique by claiming it was a clever, cautionary tale about the dangers of A.I., only to pivot and say that was because the script seemed to have been written by one. Allegory? More like all gory.

And then it had to go and spoil it all by being good.

Because, first of all, those trailers don’t tell you everything. Sure, they seem to. They reveal that Iris (Sophie Thatcher from Heretic and Yellowjackets) is an android and the property of Josh, played by Jack Quaid, who looks like a young Colin Firth.

They show that she can be controlled — or control herself! — by means of a smartphone app. They hint at a maelstrom of violence. They even have Iris tell us that the two happiest days in her life were the day she met Josh, “and the day I killed him.”

Ah, but there’s a lot of meat in that two-day sandwich. The film opens with Iris and Josh on their way to a weekend in the country at the secluded cottage of a mysterious, wealthy Russian named Sergey (Rupert Friend) who is dating Josh’s friend Kat (Megan Suri). Josh’s friend Eli (Harvey Guillen) is also there, as is Eli’s boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage). There is much sexual tension in the air, and lots of wine in the cellar.

And murder. Again, if you’ve seen the trailers, you know that a lot of blood is spilled, and much of it seems to wind up on other people (or robots), so it’s sometimes hard to know who’s been stabbed and who’s doing the stabbing.

Drew Hancock, who both wrote the script and directed the film, has crafted a story with several wickedly timed plot twists that will have you wondering if the death (single or multiple, homicide or robocide, I’m not telling) is premeditated or a crime of passion, accidental or on purpose, deliberate or crafted, guilty-as-charged or a frame up, nature or nurture, free will or programming... I could go on.

But I shouldn’t. There are too many surprises, and I’ve risked spoiling some already. But I will say that Companion, entertaining though it is, may not stand up to multiple viewings or close scrutiny. For instance, much is made of the notion that Iris, a product of Empathix Robotics, cannot tell a lie — ever. And yet despite that hard-wired bit of coding, she is blissfully free of any other immutable, I don’t know, Laws of Robotics?

Indeed, there are a few moments where the script seems to wave its hand and decide that story trumps logic. They didn’t demolish my suspension of disbelief, but I did find myself questioning them on the way home from the theatre.

Anyway, on to the performances. As Josh, Quaid is a fascinating mix of nice guy and thinks-he’s-a-nice-guy. (There’s even a conversation in one scene unpacking this distinction.) Clean-cut and well-spoken to a fault (emphasis on fault), he can at time be brusque to his girlfriend because — well, she’s not really a person, is she? She merely fulfills all the functions of one, while requiring none of the reciprocity that makes relationships real.

And Thatcher is — wow. As an actor, she is doing most of the heavy lifting in the film. (And as a character, note that she’s also the one carrying their luggage.) Coiffed and demurely made-up, her character looks like she shops at a Stepford Wives Petite Boutique — lots of hairbands, socially appropriate bare skin, and pastel skirts. Sexy, but not dangerously sexy. That’ll come later.

But the best thing about her performance — and it’s equal parts acting prowess and clever writing — is that you won’t be far into the film before you start to sympathize with Iris, perhaps even more than you do the humans in the story.

As such, she joins a storied list of filmic androids that tug at our heartstrings — see Blade Runner and its sequel; Andy in Alien: Romulus; even the conflicted Ava in Ex Machina. And who can forget Carl from Terminator: Dark Fate? Oh; apparently many people can. But I thought he was sweet.

Companion ultimately delivers on three levels. It’s a creepy (and occasionally bloody, and also funny) thriller. It’s a whodunit, or maybe a whatdunit. And it’s a philosophical door-opener into questions to ask of ourselves when it comes to our computational creations — what to make of them, whether and how much to feel for them, whether we owe them anything.

Hmm. Maybe it was written by an A.I. after all.

Companion. Directed by Drew Hancock. Starring Sophie Thatcher, and Jack Quaid. In theatres January 31.