Dir. Drew Hancock, US, 2025, 97 mins

Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid

Review by .Carol Allen

Companion begins like a typical rom-com. Iris (Sophie Thatcher) bumps into Josh (Jack Quaid) in the supermarket and a charming romance is born over a somewhat unstable display of oranges.

The now loved up couple then go to stay with some friends of Josh. The party is hosted by super rich Russian oligarch Sergey (Rupert Friend) in his luxurious country retreat. Also in the party is Sergey’s girlfriend Kat (Megan Suri) and a mutually adoring gay couple, Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage).

But all is not as lovely as it seems, certainly for the women. Kat admits to Iris that Sergey treats her as “an accessory” to his lavish lifestyle rather than a loving partner and Iris is beginning to realise to what extent she has to tailor her behaviour to Josh’s moods and whims. Things then take a very dark turn, when Sergey tries to rape Iris and in self defence she stabs him to death.

And that’s when the first big surprise of the film kicks in. Iris discovers she is not a human being at all but a robot, an AI companion, programmed by Josh to love and please him and in this instance commit murder for him. And that’s just for starters.

After that writer/director Drew Hancock’s inventive and creative story delivers shock after shock and unexpected plot twists in spades, some shockingly violent, some very funny. Hancock also uses the story to make some pertinent observations on controlling behaviour in relationships.

Thatcher is very good as Iris, as is Quaid. The son of fellow actor Dennis Quaid he has his father’s ability to be both cute and charming one minute and a nasty piece of work the next. Gage and Guillén as the gay couple also contribute to the story’s many twists, while Hancock himself, making his feature film debut, is definitely a talent to watch.

This original and very entertaining piece of sci-fi also raises an interesting question as we as a species move towards becoming more and more dependent on Artificial Intelligence. What happens when AI itself becomes self aware and develops independent consciousness? It may well happen. How will we handle that? Remember the story of Pandora’s Box – and beware.