Machina Ex — Companion
It’s a rare thing when a film comes out that you simply can’t review without giving away crucial plot information. Companion is one such piece of entertainment. You just can’t talk about it while ignoring the central mechanic of the plot. So if you haven’t seen the film yet, a mild spoiler warning is in effect for the duration of this critique. If you want to go in blind, I encourage you to read something else on this website. Thankfully, the movie is so fun and so well constructed that revealing the first twist doesn’t dull the myriad ones to follow, all of which work to create a brilliant horror comedy that stands as the first truly great picture of 2025.
The film opens with a lovely rom-com meet-cute between our lead pair, Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid), showing us a very Hollywood beginning to their relationship. Iris narrates the scene, calling it one of the two perfect moments of her life. The second, well, that’d be letting too much out. Anyway, some time later the couple is on their way to a secluded lake house in the woods, so far off the beaten path that Josh’s self-driving, AI-powered car can’t maintain stability as it traverses the dirt roads. Iris is nervous about this little weekend getaway, as she’s somewhat shy, especially around Josh’s friend Kat (Megan Suri), who Iris feels resents her for some reason. Still, she loves Josh with all her heart, so she’ll tough it out.
Things go well enough at first. Kat is sarcastic and aloof around Iris, but she at least has some fun, courtesy of her wealthy boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend), who owns the place. Joining them is another couple, Eli and Patrick (Harvey Guillén and Lukas Gage), who’ve been together for several years. Everyone dances, has a few drinks, and Patrick cooks up a world-class meal. The only real disappointment is a smash cut to Josh quickly finishing in bed and having no desire for pillow talk, telling Iris dismissively to go to sleep.
Disaster strikes the following day, however, as Iris is attacked by Sergey at the lake. Despite her constant screams, he continues trying to have his way with her, even saying that Kat gave him permission, until Iris kills him with a pocketknife (this is NOT a spoiler, as the stabbing was revealed in the film’s trailer). Utterly distraught and covered in blood, Iris returns to the house, where Josh and Kat immediately scramble to calm her down and discuss the next steps. Confused and terrified, Iris tries to protest and get some answers, only to be told to go to sleep again, and she just shuts down.
Yes, this is the bit that I have to divulge. Iris is an android. She was leased by Josh from a company that manufactures “companion” robots. Their goofy meeting was a programmed memory from a list of options. In fact, Josh has complete control over Iris’ settings via his phone and tablet, and can adjust her levels of strength, intelligence, and submissiveness at a whim. Iris does have a degree of free will within those parameters, but she is incapable of violence. Or at least she was, until Josh “modded” her to remove that block. The reason Kat hates her is because she only sees her as a talking sex doll, a walking reminder of Josh’s proclivities.
It also turns out that Sergey’s death was no accident. He was encouraged by Kat to make an attempt on Iris, knowing that Josh had reprogrammed her to kill, and the plan was that she and Josh would split Sergey’s millions of dollars (his nebulous job and Russian accent are enough to convince Josh that he’s a gangster of some kind), as Kat is tired of being his mistress. Using Iris to do the deed was their ace in the hole, as the act could be dismissed as a malfunction, and Iris would simply be deactivated and decommissioned.
Why do I tell you this? There are two reasons. One, if you don’t know that Iris is a machine (something you can guess from the trailers), then the review stops at “couple goes on weekend holiday.” You really can’t discuss anything related to the plot, characters, writing, or production elements if you don’t have this key piece of knowledge. Two, this reveal happens at the end of the first act, meaning there are SO MANY MORE twists and turns to come, most of them dealing with Iris’ survival instinct, the unraveling of Josh and Kat’s plot, and the eventual body count (this is horror, after all).
For the most part, the rest of the film unfolds spectacularly. Genre tropes are alternately deployed and defenestrated thanks to writer-director Drew Hancock’s wickedly clever script. Every piece of new information we learn opens up more possibilities for righteous kills and riotous laughter in equal measure. The production design of the lake house itself is fantastic, setting up multiple avenues to explore. A sign of a great hybrid film like this is that the audience I watched it with was guffawing at the appropriate moments and gasping at others. You have to give credit to any film that can pull that off.
I put this down to two major elements. The first is the cast, which is great across the board. Suri probably has the least to do as far as character growth, but her motivations still mostly make sense. Guillén and Gage are endearingly funny and adorable together. Even Rupert Friend, for his limited screentime, makes for a fun and silly caricature. But what really sells it is Thatcher and Quaid, who have genuine chemistry throughout, even though the nature of their relationship is completely artificial (and a general satire of unimpressive men trying to manipulate and destroy a woman’s agency). You buy Iris’ programmed affection just as much as you do Josh’s insecurities, not to mention his numerous missteps. I was really impressed with Thatcher in Heretic, and she does even better here, displaying a versatile range as she has to alter her personality, emotional depth, and deadly skill with each adjustment to her program, including moments that are rigidly mechanical. She is quickly becoming one of my favorites.
This leads into the second highlight, which is the degree of empathy. There are a few trite moments to be sure, particularly the climax tossing off “nice guy myth” talking points we’ve heard for years (and that infuriate me as a genuine nice guy) and reducing Josh’s inadequacies to penis size and incel stereotypes. But setting those aside, you do get a pretty even-handed look at both Josh and Iris’ respective humanity. Iris is the obvious focal point because she’s a sentient machine, an artificial lifeform coming to grips with her own existence and fighting for her right to self-determination. It’s a huge part of the moral quandary surrounding AI as a technology, because the more we use it, the easier it will be to allow it to replace humans, eventually become self-aware, and when that day comes, we will have to reckon with it.
On the other hand, though, you can at least qualify Josh’s initial position, though you certainly can’t condone his actions. He’s one of the millions of lonely people out there you can look at every day. The Beatles wrote a song about it 60 goddamn years ago. So if you’re given the chance to alleviate that loneliness, and it’s not hurting anyone, would you honestly blame or shame someone for being tempted? There are a lot of ethical questions at play here, but there are no easy answers, and in the end we’re all flawed individuals. It’s part of being human. In a real-world setting, if Sophie Thatcher was sitting across from me in a cute sundress, looked me in the eyes and smiled a sweet and flirty, “Hey, you” at me, I can guarantee you the logic centers of my brain would not be fully functional. Now, to be clear, Josh goes WAY overboard from that point, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get it to a certain extent.
That’s the low-key genius of this movie. Yes, it is a ton of fun on a surface level, filled with great acting, more than solid laughs, and some damn good violence. But beyond that, this is a film that’s willing to use such bombastic tools to ask some very serious questions about where we’re going when it comes to new tech. How far is too far? Does our increasing reliance on it make us dumber? What are the societal implications of creating synthetic significant others? The degree of insight is honestly the biggest surprise twist of the entire affair. For something that could easily have been churned out and dismissed like a feature-length parody of the “I Dated a Robot” episode of Futurama or a more comedic take on Metropolis or Ex Machina, this very strangely has something worthwhile to say, and if you’re not interested in that, it’s still a joyously batshit romp. To echo the literal customization of the androids in the story, the film itself is designed to let you as a viewer figuratively fine tune your experience based on how much you want to read into it. That’s a hell of a trick, especially when so many flicks would have made Iris’ nature the final turn of the plot, rather than the first.
Grade: A-
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Would you ever “date” a machine? Should Sophie Thatcher team up with Alicia Vikander for a robot girlfriend revenge crossover? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on February 24, 2025.
