Review: Companion

Image courtesy of New Line Cinema.

How much do we want to humanize AI? Do we want our computers and gadgets thinking for themselves? Some of the lazier variety, perhaps, want the items they own to anticipate the need, so to speak, thereby making humans almost useless - which, come to think of it, is what AI might end up doing anyway.

These questions are not exactly pondered in Drew Hancock's "Companion," a film that I must refer to as a horror movie, even though it's not particularly frightening, even while it's often gory and isn't funny enough to be considered a comedy. But they are thoughts that I pondered afterward.

I'm not going to be able to discuss the movie at any length without giving away a major spoiler - assuming that it even is one at this point - but you've been warned. In the film, a guy who the filmmakers want you to believe is a nice one, Josh (Jack Quaid), but who you secretly know probably isn't, takes his seemingly docile girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), to a secluded cabin for a weekend getaway.

They are joined there by a woman named Kat (Megan Suri), who seemingly doesn't like Iris, as well as a creepy Russian named Sergey (an unrecognizable Rupert Friend), and a gay couple - Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). Something seems off from the beginning, especially when Josh tells Sergey that he's welcome to spend the morning at the beach alone with Iris, while he and Kat remain at the house where they're all staying.

A death occurs and it comes out that - in case you hadn't guessed it - Iris is a robot, albeit a lifelike one who dotes on the every need of its companion and has sex with them. But there's a plot afoot among some of the characters and Iris is quickly seen as a liability - and a scapegoat - in the scenario. Josh tries to shut her down but she escapes, and spends much of the rest of the film trying to stay away from the other characters and, in some instances, being captured and abused by them.

There's clearly something to be said in this film about toxic masculinity. Josh naturally thinks he's a good guy, despite the overwhelming evidence that he is not - and he treats women poorly, regardless of whether they're human beings or robots. 

But while "Companion" could have also had something to say about whether it's a good idea to give robots minds of their own - as the "Terminator" films did - this one is clearly in the AI's corner because Iris is more likable than the horrendous Josh or Sergey. Instead, there's simply a lot of plotting involving how Iris - and another character who is a robot - can be programmed or deprogrammed. 

"Companion" is amusing enough, and yet it's not quite enough, considering the topics it covers at this particular point in time. It has a few good laughs and it's occasionally gruesome, but the manner in which it addresses a capitalistic society in which everything is commodified, toxic masculinity, or the dangers of AI are mostly window dressing. The film has its moments, but I feel that it could have been more.