Spoiler alert #1: Iris, obviously an anagram of Siri, is a robot. Nothing new here: Iris’ predecessors are the killer doll in M3gan (2022), the humanoid in Ex Machina (2014), the replicants in Blade Runner (1982), the wives in The Stepford Wives (1975), the android prostitutes in Westworld (1973), the false Maria in Metropolis (1927). In fact, we’ll find them as far back as the mechanical doll in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann and the automata in Greek mythology. What’s different is the genre –or rather the multiple genres– Companion inhabits and the satirical tone it adopts throughout: whereas all of the above films, but The Stepford Wives, are sci-fi, Companion mixes comedy and thriller, the way The Stepford Wives played with (all the more the 2004 campy remake).
Spoiler #2: the 87-second trailer does a better job than the 97-minute film. It opens with the same voice over as the movie: “There have been two moments in my life when I was happiest: the first was the day I met Josh and the second, the day I killed him.” It telegraphs the plot twists, giving away a few of the goriest shots, and it sketches out Iris’ journey to self-awareness and self-empowerment (“The days of you controlling me are over.”) A reversal of the Stepford wives’ metamorphosis from independent career women to brainwashed housewives.
“The day I met Josh” at the grocery store: it’s love-at-first-sight and it’s filmed as any clichéd rom-com. For the first 24 minutes, Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is dressed like a doll, she indulges Josh’s every whim, she’s instructed to “smile and act happy,” when meeting Josh’s friends in the countryside: Kat and her sugar daddy Sergey and gay couple Eli and Patrick. Then everything changes: Sergey (Rupert Friend) forces himself on Iris, she kills him. What did Sergey mean, when he said: “This is what you do (…) This what you’re here for?” Where did the knife come from?
‘Companion’ • Photo: New Line Cinema.
Iris is about to find out –and with her the spectator: she’s just “an emotional support robot that fucks!” She didn’t meet Josh at the grocery store –that ‘Hallmark moment’ was implanted in her ‘brain’ as memories were implanted in Blade Runner’s replicants– In fact she was delivered in a box, unwrapped, programmed and fucked. Her “emotional connection” with Josh (Jack Quaid) was established with a mechanical (and very prosaic) “love link;” the color of her eyes, the sound of her voice, her IQ… all are fungible and conveniently customized through the manufacturer’s app. “It’s part of your programming,” Josh tells her. “You’re a robot!”
We’ll also find out there’s a second “fuck bot” in the cabin: toy boy Patrick (Lukas Gage). Another “love link,” another implanted memory, another lie. First-time director Drew Hancock unmasks romantic relationships and pokes fun at men asserting power in a patriarchal culture –it doesn’t matter if straight (Josh) or flamboyantly gay (Eli)– and at their subservient ‘lovers’/companions –be it pretty-in-pink Iris or Ken-doll lookalike Patrick. What’s falling in love, after all? How far would one go to fulfill his sexual desires? Who controls and manipulates whom? Is Sergey controlling “I’m-an-accessory” Kat or is Kat ‘playing’ Sergey?
“The day I killed him:” a lot happens in the woods and in the cabin, before Iris conquers her freedom. But the filmmakers are far more interested in the themes of consent, bodily autonomy, rape, gender roles and power imbalance than in the ethical and gnoseological implications of AI. And keener on throwing a few curveballs than on warning of future (present?) threats. They gave us a rollercoaster; we enjoyed the ride.
