In Companion, the Killer Robot Is the Hero
An AI sexbot undergoes a feminist awakening in this clever sci-fi thriller.
Usually, when Hollywood makes a movie about a killer robot, it's the villain. From Westworld to Terminator to The Matrix to M3gan, murderous robots make great villains, in part because they're so morally easy to dispose of and destroy. After all, they're just malfunctioning machines.
It's hard to discuss Companion without revealing some spoilers, but the movie's biggest twist comes in the very premise, revealed in the first act: It's a movie about a killer robot—who is also a sexbot, and the movie's hero. It's a startling, clever, blackly funny sci-fi/horror thriller about feminine freedom, AI personhood, and the perils of taking intelligent machines for granted.
Companion starts with a classic rom-com meet cute: A boy named Josh (Jack Quaid) meets a girl named Iris (Sophie Thatcher) in a grocery store. They lock eyes, and he awkwardly, amusingly, knocks over an entire display of oranges. It's goofy, endearing love at first sight, and the next time we see the couple, they're in a car heading to a weekend retreat at a luxurious lake house owned by a sketchy Russian (Rupert Friend).
Iris is concerned about the company—she doesn't know them well, but she's worried they won't like her. Josh reassures her that it's fine, but he also treats her dismissively. And, rather oddly, she seems to sleep on command.
Iris, it turns out, is right to be worried. The friends at the lake house don't particularly like her, because they know something she doesn't: She's a robot—a sexbot, to be blunt about it, an AI girlfriend companion model who is little more than an advanced iPhone in human form, bonded to her partner not through love but software and programming.
Typically, companions can't harm humans. But Iris has been hacked and modded by her boyfriend as part of a scheme involving the shady Russian. She also gains control of her own settings, which allows her to hike up her intelligence. Not only can she defend herself, she can also think for herself. She's the embodiment of a vengeful feminist awakening, in AI murderbot form.
Companion's twisty narrative never gets bogged down in what-it-all-means philosophizing—it's tightly paced and scripted, and packed with violence and quips—but there's surprising depth to its pulpy sci-fi premise. It's part Blade Runner, part The Stepford Wives, by way of caustic modern social horror films like Barbarian and Get Out.
It's also a surprisingly timely film, coming at a moment when AI is growing more powerful and more integrated into our lives, when virtual friends are already headed to market, and when influencers are abusing expensive toy robots in ways that seem to make them try to escape their human masters.
Like so many monster movies and robot stories, going all the way back to Frankenstein, Companion is a techno-horror tale about our own great and terrible creations, and our own worst impulses, and the ways in which our desire to create life we can control and exploit inevitably come back to haunt us.
Companion, however, balances its dour, Michael Crichton-esque story of technological terror with a darkly funny pro-AI outlook: What if, actually, the robot deserved to win? To quote the Crichton-based Jurassic Park, another sci-fi-tinged monster movie about man's creations turning on their creators: "Life, uh, finds a way"—to kill us, for entertainment.
