A Companion Review: Companion (2025)

Companion (2025)

Director: Drew Hancock

Writer: Drew Hancock

Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quad

Companion Movie Review

Companion is a wicked and delicious hard lean into the diabolical nature of control and the human condition on how far we are willing to bend when it comes to dominion over others. This movie is a stylized, razor-sharp dark comedy that dissects emotional dependence, abusive relationships, control over autonomy, and dehumanization. This film is not for the weak; Drew Hancock takes us on a non-stop, relentless ride that journeys into misogyny and has no fear of peeling back the layers of the chilling reality of manipulation.

Jack Quaid (my favourite nepo baby) is a doll. A sweetheart. He’s charming and delicate and full of love for Iris. Until he isn’t.

Sophie Thatcher (who, no doubt, is becoming a horror icon) is a doll. She’s charming and delicate and full of love for Josh. But she’s a doll. Literally.

This film sets us up in a trope, a cute young couple are going to their friend's cottage (and I say cottage lightly, this place is a fucking villa). A weekend away to drink, laugh, eat good food and forget they are adults.

These two play off each other perfectly; they come off as a love story with an ache inside it, it feels as if Josh is just at the end of his line, falling out of love, a little annoyed with the theatrics of Iris, who’s a soft, pretty little thing, but only because she’s programmed to be. It’s heart-wrenching; she tells a story of how she knew it was love, how he would always be her person, how she recognized it from the beginning, but there’s no agency in that love, she was designed for it. A dig into the theme of control. The idea of love being something you can manufacture rather than something you feel is frightening, to begin with, but Iris is seemingly self-aware and teeters on the edge of the audience’s mind, and we question if she’s truly alive or following an embedded script.

This all comes to light when she murders Surgey (Rupert Friend), the host of the cottage they’re at, after he throws himself at her, not understanding that even in the concept of a companion, there is such thing as consent. She returns to the cottage drenched in blood, establishing this film is going to embody some raw feminine rage with a flare, we’re going to have some real good for her moments.

“You know, I hate the term fuckbot.” This line is such a trip coming from Jack Quaid's mouth; he’s just so damn cute, the personification of “aw shucks,” and he knows it too, he weaponizes it in this film, taking his golden retriever looks and turning him into a villain. He perpetuates an incel, we all know the term by now, a man who views a woman as an object, even if she is AI. Her understanding of her being made artificial without humanity is a visceral gut punch, but what’s striking is the emotion behind it. If artificial intelligence is designed in every capacity to be real, right down to its flesh, her flesh, her feelings, her autonomy, then who are we to say what isn’t concrete, factual existence and what is?

The whole trajectory of the film was a plan between Josh and one of the guests, Kat (Megan Suri plays an iconic rancid, self-indulgent asshole, I almost loved her). To take Iris’s settings and heighten her rage, to lower her self-control and permit Surgey to use her body, knowing full well she will act in self-defence, all to take his riches. A plan was made by just Josh and Kat but soon involved the other two guests, who were just invited to pad the numbers and make a show for both the police report and the diagnostic report to Empathix—note, this name comes from the Greek word ‘empatheia’ which means ‘passion’ and ‘state of emotion,’ let’s not pretend we don’t see the parallels here—the company that developed Iris. Iris has depth. She has anger, manufactured or not; it exists inside her, and what’s more important, it’s real to her. She’s furious, even when Josh lowers her settings, the anger is in her; her rage is potent, she not only wants to survive, she wants revenge, she wants to live outside the idea of being a toy for a man to use. She’s instinctual and escapes from the ropes Josh tied her up, his phone in her hands, and she flees the scene. She raises her intellect to 100% (after seeing Josh had her set to just 40%, low enough to keep her subdued) and develops a plan to survive and liberate herself from Josh and his abuse.

Every death in this film can be traced back to Josh, a consequence of his persona, when you try to manipulate the world around you and force bend others to your will, there’s going to be repercussions. Josh treats everyone around him as puppets, unaware and in denial of who he is. He refuses to take accountability for his actions, and his lack of ambition as a person and his inability to grow eventually lead to his demise. Having dominion over Iris was his ultimate power, and her being aware of it became his downfall. It’s not just Iris he views without agency, it’s everyone, and while doing this he sees himself as the victim. He believes he’s just misunderstood, he fell on hard times, he even convinces himself that he and Kat have a “will they, won’t they” relationship, but it’s all a facade. The truth is harrowing, he’s a vicious and calculated abuser, as the film transpires, we see his entire mask fall off.

This movie, with all its themes laid out, sounds like an incredibly frightening experience. If you sit with it and truly ponder what it’s all about when you peel it all back, you might think of it as one of the scariest movies to encounter. It’s like The Stepford Wives brought into the digital age, but the key difference is it’s fucking hilarious. Making a proper horror comedy is not an easy feat; the punchlines have to land as effectively as the actual punches to find the humour in a movie about abuse. Josh’s attack on Iris is horrifying; you feel the fear in her as he descends further into madness, but it’s the terror he embodies that makes her one-liner upon his death so delicious. To relate to an AI is insanity, but here we are.

Take Companion, the chaos of it, the deep meanings of power, control and the chaos that lives within that, and add brilliant music to it. You’ll never think of the Beegees the same. A film that isn’t intended to just entertain, it forces us to confront an uncomfortable reality while making us chuckle at it along the way. The blend of dark comedy and horror makes for a uniquely chilling experience. It recognizes the sheer absurdity of asking us to take the notion of a man, purchasing a woman in the form of AI, and then relentlessly abusing her, but also forces perspective in that it’s not that absurd. This is a future that could very well be ours, and while we already have heartbreaking cases of domestic violence, abuse, objectification, and manipulation, we will also have to consider the ethics of how far it can go before it crosses into dehumanization. By the time the credits roll, you’ll be left wondering what the future of human relationships is, what people will be willing to do to others when they think they have no consequence, and how far we will go to stop it. Drew Hancock created a brilliant film. It has lingered with me since I saw it. It’s a merciless, retro-infused, bloody bop that reminds us of the dangers of, well, us. All wrapped up in a bitchin’ soundtrack.