Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is quick to regale anyone who will listen with the story of the two best moments of her life: the day she first saw her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) in a strikingly cute in the produce aisle, and the day she decided to to kill him.
That juxtaposition between the saccharine and the brutal should be expected by one film like “Companion” whose marketing has saturated viewers with reminders that it comes from the studio behind “The Notebook” and the creative team behind “Barbarian.” But everyone who enjoyed Zach Creggers endlessly giddy horror masterpieces from 2022 will likely go into “Barbarian” producer Drew Hancock’s “Companion” knowing that all will not be as it seems.
As they gently flirt and bicker on their way to a weekend getaway at a remote cabin with two other couples, Iris and Josh seem to be the epitome of young love. But when an argument starts to get out of hand, Josh is quick to knock his girlfriend down and start her over. At worst, he knows he even has the option of restoring her to her full factory settings.
Yes, Iris is a sex robot that Josh bought to be his personal companion. The convincingly lifelike replica of a girlfriend is even equipped with technology that imprints her brain with true love for the first person she lays eyes on. That sense of love leaves her willing to do anything within the realm of reason and human decency for her partner—but of course that’s not good enough for the kind of guy who seriously considers investing in an android lover.
The hot trend is that users “jailbreak” their sex robots and introduce new features that are not in the factory settings. Josh has done just that, modifying Iris to have a much stronger sense of survival and aggression than your replacement for social interaction. It’s all part of his plan to get her to murder her friend’s hunky boyfriend, so he can steal his multi-million dollar fortune for himself at any cost. But he didn’t account for the fact that her newfound aggression would give her a worldview that encompassed more than his immediate needs, and the mix of humans and newly self-interested androids inhabiting the cabin soon find themselves in a bloody showdown they never anticipated. .
There’s a lot to enjoy about “Companion,” from Hancock’s elegant visuals, smooth pacing and intricate script, to Thatcher’s uncanny performance as an android who borders on humanity without ever crossing the threshold. But while the film provides a snapshot of human-AI relations at a tipping point, it doesn’t fully explore some of the implications of its premise.
From a structural point of view, Iris is a typical “Final Girl” – she is introduced as a victim of violent circumstances but refuses to perish as one, ultimately winning freedom by fighting back and outliving many of her peers. It’s a common character arc that has effectively become the bildungsroman of the horror genre, giving countless filmmakers the opportunity to experiment with new monsters and ideas within a generally accepted framework. Hancock’s biggest turn is the decision to place a robot in the role usually reserved for human women — and the film’s success or failure will depend on how willing audiences are to root for the AI.
From “Black Mirror” to “Her,” many movies and shows have looked to a future where increasingly lifelike AI creations force us to answer complicated ethical questions about what it actually means to be human. “Companion” chooses to portray Iris as instantly likable, giving her a journey to freedom that will feel familiar to any horror fan. The film’s very existence is an interesting phenomenon, as it offers a depiction of sentient AI robots that are largely uncritical of anything but the humans who buy them.
When we learn that Josh is a less than ideal person, it’s taken for granted that Iris’s freedom is something worth rooting for, and that decisions like lowering her intelligence settings to make her less able to advocate for herself are evil. But should it be so? At a moment when much of the cinephile community is showing knee-jerk opposition to anything that can be labeled AI – sometimes with the best of intentions, other times with a single-minded focus on keeping things on the same level bordering on reactionary – the question of whether a vulnerable robot is better than a toxic human may not be as easy to answer as a film like “Companion” hopes. The film’s salience depends on how sympathetic each viewer is to the idea that robots should have some level of human rights, but its real legacy may end up being the stress test it gives to well-established cinematic tropes at a moment when even our definition of personhood is up for renegotiation.
Grade: B
A New Line Cinema release, “Companion” opens in theaters on Friday, January 31.
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