The best release of 2025 is already here. Drew Hancock’s “Companion,” a film destined to become a horror classic, follows Iris (Sophie Thatcher) as she travels with her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) and his friends to a billionaire’s cabin. Unease is established from the start, but when the billionaire dies, the decline accelerates. The billionaire’s murder isn’t a mystery in the film — we know that Iris did it after he tried to assault her. What comes after that is most crucial. The centerpiece of the film is the fact that Iris is a robot who Josh rented to be his girlfriend. All of her memories before him are fake.
The film reveals this bit of information piece by piece until it erupts into Iris’ attempt to reclaim her selfhood in the second half. When the film begins, it has an almost rom-com-esque quality to it, as Iris and Josh have a “meet-cute” at the grocery store and seem to set off on an idyllic romance. This begins to break up when they arrive at the cabin when Josh’s friends, especially Kat (Megan Suri), are fairly abrasive towards Iris.
The momentum builds from there as Josh increasingly ignores Iris and she wanders to the beach and is assaulted by the billionaire who she then kills. Iris then returns to the cabin covered in blood and Josh, realizing she defaulted from her programming, becomes upset and ties her up. After this, the audience finds out Iris is a robot and, perhaps more chillingly, has been controlled by Josh the entire time. The friends are revealed to have only been at the cabin in an attempt to steal all of the billionaire’s money. This plan, as well as Josh’s control over Iris, is then foiled as Iris breaks free from her restraints and begins to fight back. The rest of the film follows Iris’ attempt, and eventually success, at escaping.
Easily my favorite part of this film is the level of agency Iris gains and asserts. Iris starts out thinking she’s independent — her own person with her own will and power. However, in discovering that she is a robot, Iris also discovers that she has never truly had her own self and that everything about her, from the tone of her voice to her level of intelligence, has been controlled by Josh — even her memory of their meeting was a pre-programmed scene. This is where Iris breaks. After receiving this news, she decides to forge her own destiny. She steals Josh’s phone, which controls her programming, and later destroys the mechanisms for controlling her altogether, which allows her to fully become her own person. There are multiple layers to just how powerful this is, especially from a gender standpoint.
Both the horror and science fiction genres have historically not always provided the best representation of women, often reducing them to simplistic archetypes of sex symbols or damsels in distress. However, these same genres have also been used in discursive practices to combat these stereotypes. “Companion” is an incredible example of this. It flips the idea of women being made to serve men completely on its head as it moves away from this and into Iris’ own reclamation of self and eventual defeat of Josh — an effective metaphorical alignment for her also destroying those who would seek to control her.
Additionally, the film moves even further beyond that in its final scenes as Iris not only sets herself free but also accepts all of herself. In the second to last scene, she is shown peeling back bits of her arm to reveal the metal of the robot skeleton underneath. Iris does this until one of her entire arms is visible as fully metal, after which she hops into a car and drives away. The final scene is of Iris driving her car next to a man and a woman. The woman is clearly another robot, as she looks identical to Iris, and as the film closes, Iris raises her newly visible robot arm and waves to the other woman.
Iris’ wave is the perfect conclusion to this film, as it signals not only her own liberation but also her move toward acceptance and empowerment. This motion signals that Iris is both free herself and ready to help free others. Her direct visible resemblance to the other woman is enough to jar the other woman, and Iris’ robot hand only serves to further shake this woman out of her stupor. The simple motion of a wave is a move towards further breaking the system. In indicating to this woman who she truly is, she continues to shake up the system that she herself just broke free from. It’s a wonderful and empowering conclusion that ultimately took my breath away.
All in all, “Companion” is a film that I love. I’m grateful it exists. It is smart and subversive while also being incredibly funny and empowering. Sophie Thatcher delivered an all-time great performance and only further solidified her status as a must-watch actor for the future. If “Companion” is any indicator, this is going to be a great year for movies!