Title: Companion
Director: Drew Hancock
Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Harvey Guillén, Rupert Friend, Megan Suri
Where: In theatres near you
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Iris has only had two truly defining moments in life. The day she met Josh. And the day she killed him. With that deliciously ominous prelude, the film sets the stage for a rollercoaster of deception, manipulation, and technological terror.
Writer-director Drew Hancock in his feature debut, delivers a darkly comedic and thoroughly entertaining thriller that is as much a meditation on autonomy as it is a blood-spattered joyride through the pitfalls of artificial intelligence.
In the grand tradition of horror setups, we begin with an all-too-perfect romantic getaway: a remote mansion, an eclectic mix of guests, and a looming sense of dread. Jack Quaid’s Josh, a man with equal parts charm and condescension, whisks his doe-eyed girlfriend Iris (Sophie Thatcher) away for a weekend of socializing with his old flame Kat (Megan Suri), her sugar daddy Sergey (Rupert Friend, hamming it up gloriously), and the ever-bantering gay couple Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). What could go wrong? Well, everything. And fast.
When Iris returns from a lakeside stroll covered in blood and holding a knife, the film makes no attempt to drag out a whodunit. The answer is obvious. What remains is a thrilling unravelling of how we got here, why Josh is controlling Iris through a smartphone app, and, more intriguingly, how long it will take before the puppet cuts its own strings.
What makes the film stand out from the usual rogue - AI narrative, is its wry understanding of horror tropes and refusal to take itself too seriously. This is not a sleek meditation on artificial intelligence and consciousness; it’s messier, more playful, and gleefully indulgent in its genre excesses. Hancock is more interested in satirizing male entitlement than in deeply philosophical musings about sentience. The film frames Iris’s arc as a #MeToo-inflected awakening and an overdue revenge fantasy. It’s the kind of film where despite knowing Josh’s fate from the outset, you still relish every moment leading up to it.
Thatcher carries the film with unnerving precision. She flits between docility and rebellion with the flick of a switch, sometimes literally, and her performance is a masterclass in calibrated control. Quaid, on the other hand, leans into his affable but sinister shtick, playing Josh as the kind of guy who believes himself charming even as he’s doing the most abhorrent things. Friend, with his thick accent and ostentatious villainy, is all gold chains and bad intentions—a walking stereotype that he fully commits to with scene-stealing bravado.
While Hancock does not quite reinvent the genre, he executes it with such energy and dark humour that it hardly matters. Eli Born's cinematography captures the sleek unease of the mansion, while the editing team keeps the pacing tight and the suspense taut. Yes, the film is pulp done right, with just enough intelligence to keep it sharp and just enough absurdity to keep it from being predictable.
When Iris finally fulfils her chilling prophecy, it is less of a shock and more of a deeply, satisfying inevitability. Because really- how could it have ended any other way?
