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Companion (2025)

Like Presence, Companion was part of a Mystery screening at my local cinema and since Presence turned out to be a good film I thought that this film would be just as good but unlike the previous film I guessed this correctly. Companion is about Iris (played by Sophie Thatcher) who meets Josh (Jack Quaid) at the supermarket and then the story moves along in time with Irish and Josh arriving a house in the middle of nowhere that is owned by a russian who tries something with Iris who then kills him and the film’s twist is that Iris is a robot. Sadly Companion was sort of spoiled in the trailer so I knew that the twist but the film looks past that and becomes a cat and mouse chase with Josh trying to get Iris shut down and her attempts to prevent that.

GOOD POINT 01 - GOOD CENTRAL PERFORMANCE FROM SOPHIE THATCHER

The film has a great central performance from Sophie Thatcher. I thought that she was really good in Heretic and despite playing a robot, she makes Iris a likeable and real person. The film sort of has its cake and eats in when they make Iris really smart and then really dumb when the plot needs her to be. Thatcher manages to play different versions of the same character and do it very well. She is showing that Heretic wasn't a one off.

GOOD POINT 02 - JACK QUAID IS A VERY GOOD BADDIE

Jack Quaid gives one of his best performances as Josh. He comes across as likeable at the beginning but when the main plot kicks in, he becomes such a horrible antagonist and does a great job in making you hate him. He doesn't seem to have any qualms about getting Patrick to basically become a younger Terminator to hunt down Iris. Quaid should play more bad guys as she seems to do quite well with what he is given.

GOOD POINT 03 - SUPPORTING CHARACTERS GOOD BUT NOT TOO ANNOYING

The film does have a limited supporting cast but whilst they are young characters they aren't too annoying. Lukas Gage (Patrick) turned out to be another robot but the same sex relationship with Eli (Harvey Guillén) was well performed and Kat (Megan Suri) was fun to watch as someone who didn't like Iris and when it turns out that she is in cahoots with Josh made her character seem more interesting that it probably had any right to be. Rupert Friend is chewing the scenery and seems to be having fun doing it. He’s not in it very much but what we do see of him made him one of the highlights

GOOD POINT 04 - DOESNT BECOME AS SILLY AS IT COULD

Somehow the film doesn't become too silly. It does start to head that way when Josh is eating dinner prepared by Patrick whilst he basically tortures Iris and Patrick attacking the engineers because they reveal that the company will be able to see what Josh has been up to. Despite all this the film somehow manages to keep it together that's perhaps the most impressive thing about the entire film.

BAD POINT 01 -  JACK QUAID’S PLOT IS WAY TOO CONVOLUTED

As much as I think that Jack Quaid is great and the character is so unlikeable, the plot to get Iris to kill Sergey to take all his money does seem a little bit convoluted and there does seem to be a simpler plan to get the money. It might not have made for a better film but this is the closest that I could find to a bad point

OVERALL

I was genuinely surprised with how much I enjoyed this film. The trailer may have spoiled the twist but I still enjoyed the film enough that it might be one of my unexpected favourites of the year. The film has a good plot and good characters that make use of a restricted setting and the film zips along at 97 minutes and there isn't an ounce of fat that could have been cut. A rare thing in a modern day film.


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