Is “Companion” as Wild as its AI marketing Suggests?

IMG via New Line Cinema

There is no genre of entertainment that more palpably reflects the fears, phobias, and anxieties of modern society than horror. The horror films of the 1950s showcased radioactive monsters and science experiments gone awry as a direct result of the Atomic Age dread that was consuming the world. The horror films of the 1970s turned their eye to America itself, with filmmakers such as Tobe Hooper and John Carpenter taking the structure of more classically gothic literature and applying it to white-picket-fence suburbia. To this end, it should come as no surprise that the 2020s have already seen a glut of horror films centered on the threat of artificial intelligence.

Having AI feature in science-fiction and horror stories is nothing new; it’s been a constant fixture of these genres dating as far back as George Méliès and Fritz Lang. But over the last few years, AI has become a term far less associated with fictional fodder and far more associated with the real-life, ethically bankrupt plagiarism machines that have become so painfully prominent in everyday life. As such, there is a sense of mass paranoia surrounding the steadily increasing implementation of AI into our lives, so it makes perfect sense that horror films would tackle this idea. The latest of these, writer-director Drew Hancock’s debut feature film Companion, is a worthwhile cinematic venture but one that feels unfortunately indicative of the larger disconnect within this subgenre of new films.

There is a lot to enjoy about Companion. The script is incredibly tight in its structuring and pacing. As written, the screenplay offers many twists and turns along the way, implements setup and payoffs well, has more than enough comedy and horror-fueled gags to please ardent fans of both genres, and ultimately delivers a unanimously crowd-pleasing third act. In addition to this, the film is very well-shot, with Hancock and cinematographer Eli Born delivering a visual language that feels fittingly dynamic and capable of straddling the tonal tightrope the film attempts to navigate.



Furthermore, the film’s cast is full of great performers, all doing solid work and feeling infectiously fun while they do so. No single supporting player deserves more praise than Harvey Guillén, who has become such a reliable stalwart of a scene-stealer and a bona fide added-value factor in his own right (from this to What We Do in the Shadows to Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) that I desperately want to see him in multiple films per year.

I also found the score by Hrishikesh Hirway (he of Song Exploder fame, which is kind of insane!) to be quite interesting in how it experiments with and recontextualizes the tonality of sounds that we all associate with high-brow technological marvels. By keeping the score predominantly rooted in sounds such as acoustic strings, gentle keys, and even ethereal vocal pads, Hirway’s sonic work plays with the very idea of the artificial well before the story even begins to dig into its central hook directly.

But for as good as all of those aforementioned elements are, to praise them is to bury the lead (quite literally), as Sophie Thatcher’s central performance as Iris is the single strongest part of the entire film. Companion is a story told predominantly from the perspective of its AI-driven robot, Iris. As such, the film asks a lot of Thatcher and her performance. A key tenet of the entire film is that Thatcher’s work has to be versatile and varied enough to truly sell Iris as this ever-evolving, awareness-gaining work of machinery that is more human than the humans surrounding her. That’s a tall order in and of itself, but Thatcher does much more than simply rise to the challenge—she goes above and beyond the demands of the story to deliver some truly awe-inspiring work.

In fact, Thatcher is so good that the subtext and subtleties of her performance often feel as if they are engaging deeply with the themes of Companion in a way that the film itself is unwilling to do. As a film that is overtly about AI, women’s rights, and toxic masculinity, there would seem to be no better time for Companion to resonate than in 2025, a year in which all of these topics have become far more pressing and urgent than one would hope. And yet, so often, in the name of delivering a raucous and enjoyable thrill ride, Companion opts to merely skim these themes on a surface level. While that isn’t inherently a bad thing (everyone deserves a great night out at the movies, now more than ever), it does become a bit of a problem when the film decides that its third act will revolve so heavily and literally around these ideas.

While much of the film treads lightly along its tonal tightrope and fares well enough, the final act of Companion attempts to get quite serious and finds itself lacking the infrastructure to do so with any real finesse or grace. After the first two acts center predominantly on the back-and-forth cat-and-mouse antics between Thatcher’s Iris and the host of other characters led by Jack Quaid’s Josh, the finale turns into a very literal and heavy-handed depiction of domestic abuse. It’s an incredibly serious subject matter for the film to suddenly tackle with such bluntness, and it nearly brings the whole house of cards tumbling down.

Ultimately, the film plays with many different themes and ideas but rarely engages with any of them in a meaningful way. The decision to spin this recent outcropping of AI-driven robotic horror films on its head by rooting the story in Thatcher’s robotic lead character’s perspective is an interesting one that immediately feels as if it opens up new storytelling opportunities. However, Companion rarely takes those chances to heart. Instead, it remains a tightly wound construction of taut storytelling that eschews the opportunity to say anything particularly new or meaningful without sounding incredibly redundant.


RGM GRADE

(C+)

Overall, Companion is a very well-made film, filled with good performances and anchored by a genuinely great one from Sophie Thatcher. Drew Hancock has an immensely promising future ahead of him, as the film does more than enough to demonstrate his gifts for weaving a tight and pulse-pounding narrative. But ultimately, as fun of a ride as it was at times, Companion just left me feeling empty and a bit underwhelmed. It’s not the movie’s fault that it’s releasing at a time when all the issues contained within its story have become such vitally important ones, but the real-world significance of such themes only served to make the film’s relative reluctance to earnestly engage with them feel all the paler by comparison.

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