Companion

Appropriately enough for a columnist writing for trailersfromhell.com, I’ve always loved movie trailers. I enjoyed the bombast of the classic ones (THE GREATEST ADVENTURE EVER PUT ON FILM!) and the way they skillfully promoted the films without ruining any of the plots. Alas, that time has long passed. Trailers today deliberately show you the entirety of the picture’s plot, including any twists, the best lines and the ending. One would think people wouldn’t want to have the story told to them before they’d seen it, but according to surveys that Hollywood believes, the data shows that most audiences want to know exactly what they’re buying a ticket for before they watch it. This is anathema to the very process of storytelling, but sadly, this is where we’re at. This leads to my review of Companion, a well-made and entertaining movie whose trailer gives away the twists of a story whose appeal derives in large part from those twists.

Here’s a non-spoilery synopsis for those who might care about such things: Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and her boyfriend, Josh (Jack Quaid), are spending a weekend at a remote lake house with his friends. The home is owned by Sergey (Rupert Friend), the somewhat shady boyfriend of Josh’s friend, Kat (Megan Suri). Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage), another couple, are also there to enjoy the weekend. Iris is nervous about how Josh’s pals will feel about her, and Kat makes her disdain clear. All is reasonably well until the following day, when Iris has to defend herself from a physical attack on the lakeside, and all the seeming normalcy quickly devolves into chaos.

Thatcher is on a roll at the moment, following up the success of her work in Heretic with a terrific performance here. For reasons I won’t go into until the spoiler section, she displays a lot of dramatic range in this role, and it seems clear to me that we’ll be seeing a lot more of her talent in future projects. It’s no secret that Quaid is adept with comedy, but he’s equally skilled essaying serious subject matter, and he’s very good in this film. Friend has fun playing the mysterious Sergey, and Guillén is quite amusing as the surprisingly practical Eli. Gage is memorably fine as the faithful Patrick, and Suri is good but unfortunately stuck with the story’s one underwritten character.

Writer/director Drew Hancock has delivered a visually stylish thriller with an intriguing plot and an abundance of dark humor. Eli Born’s cinematography is crisp and vivid, and Scott Kuzio’s production design creates a lovely environment in which horrible events play out. There is much more to discuss about this film, but of necessity that will include spoilers. 

SPOILER WARNING FROM HERE ON OUT.

The first thing to say is that Companion isn’t really the horror film it was initially marketed as. It has violent elements, but it’s actually a sci-fi dark comedy/thriller. This is perfectly fine, but those expecting a horror movie might feel slightly misled by its first trailer. However, the second trailer was if anything too honest, because it reveals not only the twist but also the story’s conclusion. Which is to say, Iris is a human-seeming robot “companion” who doesn’t know that she isn’t fully human. She’s controlled by her “boyfriend” Josh, who can alter everything from her strength to intelligence from an app on his phone. The ending reveal, which is prominently featured in the second trailer and the beginning of the film itself, has Iris saying of her happiest days: “The first was the day I met Josh. And the second, the day I killed him.” 

I’m not sure why Hancock wanted to be so open about the nature of Iris, because he spends the first third of the film trying to hide that fact. And when that twist is revealed, it’s lost all its shock value because he gave it away in multiple ways. This eliminates the one big surprise the story has, which seems like odd planning. If he just wanted to make a film about robot companions, why not be completely open about it? And why tell us that she’s going to kill Josh and ruin any suspense the climax of the film might have? Structurally these plot choices seem confused or at least ineffective.

That being said, the film is still enjoyable and funny. Guillén gets some of the best lines, as in when he inquires of Josh if he modified Iris’ programming: “Did you jailbreak your sexbot?” It’s also amusing when Josh, queried if it’ll be a problem if Iris is destroyed, responds that it’ll be okay because she’s just a rental. Ouch. 

I liked Companion, and it’s clearly a clever film by talented people. I just found the filmmaker or studio’s willingness to give away the movie’s secrets very puzzling.