“Companion” (2025) is a stellar release from the Hollywood dump season. It’s an exceptionally well-written comedy thriller interested in the questions it raises without sacrificing its exciting, tense genre work by moralizing for the entire runtime.
“Companion” fits neatly into the genre of “good-for-her” movies, where the girl gets the last laugh (think: Ex Machina, Midsommar, Gone Girl). Like many good-for-her movies, you’re pretty sure how the final scene will end. The film stands alone as a very solid, hair-raising but ultimately so-futuristic-it’s-just-good-fun revenge flick: girl meets boy, boy is evil, girl seeks revenge. But writer and director Drew Hancock’s script dredges up truly compelling background questions of love, violence, misogyny and personhood.
Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) visit Josh’s friend Kat at the woodsy vacation home of her wealthy boyfriend Sergey. However, it quickly becomes clear that Iris is not human. Soon after, we learn that Iris is a “companion,” an android programmed to be Josh’s girlfriend. The crux of the film (and if you want to avoid spoilers, don’t read on!) rests on Iris killing Sergey after he forces himself on her and she refuses his advances. It later becomes clear that Josh and Kat planned this, and that Iris was essentially a weapon the conspirators would “kill” later.
The idea that androids might be used as sex machines and weapons has been debated, typically on social media, over the past decade or so. “Women will be having more sex with ROBOTS than men by 2025,” read a provocative “Sun” headline from 2016. However, “Companion” presents a portrayal of love and violence which complicates the idea of robots experiencing pure subjugation from humans, by treating Iris as something quite close to human.
Companion robots cannot harm humans with their factory programming. Thus, when Josh meddles with Iris’ programming to give her the ability to kill, he has already perverted the companion’s intended being. He, of course, only does it to make Iris a murderer.
The companions’ inability to harm is juxtaposed against the human aggression shown constantly throughout the movie. Sergey’s assault on Iris is an obvious example, but just as powerful is the single line from an employee at Empathix (the companion manufacturer), who says that people use companions frequently for target practice.
This pure form of violence — (sexual violence, target practice) rests on the dehumanization of the companions. The appearance of humanity greenlights conceptual violence against humans without moral repercussions tantamount to violence against other humans.
But the violence Josh carries out against Iris is muddier — it is violence imposed while blurring the boundaries between Iris’ humanity and her machinery. Josh doesn’t merely disable her harm-prevention programming, turn Iris’ aggression up to 100 and tell her to kill Sergey. He engineers a situation in which sexual violence will be attempted on Iris so that she has a natural reason to kill Sergey. To fulfill his plot, he must bring Iris as close as possible to humanity, weaponizing the natural, predictable response to sexual violence. Superficially, Josh uses Iris herself as an object, no different than any other weapon. But she is not simply following orders; she is experiencing a deeply gendered, human experience that makes her a more human agent.
Josh’s violence extends to the weaponization of memory and love. Iris as a companion has implanted memories, including when she and Josh supposedly met and moments they had together. She is programmed to love Josh and to remember loving Josh. For all intents and purposes, she does truly love Josh.
However, we learn throughout the film that Iris’s love for Josh is uncontrollable and essentially unconditional because Josh has ultimate control over her emotions. Josh’s actions grow from the tension between desiring a human relationship and desiring subjugation and ultimate control –– after all, Josh does not hesitate to lower Iris’ intelligence level when he thinks she’s become too aware.
In the final few minutes of the movie when a physical fight breaks out between Iris and Josh, Josh says, “I don’t need an iPad to control you. I’m part of you.” It’s a chilling moment in an otherwise mostly lighthearted horror — there’s a second when one may wonder if Iris will spare Josh even after she’s spent over an hour trying to exact her revenge. Josh’s manipulation of Iris goes beyond the idea of the two as merely linked by fragile, malleable software — he can control Iris because they are linked by very real, human love.
It’s a moment that deftly recasts the relationship as not just simply an ‘incel-sexbot’ situation, but a visceral and emotionally abusive relationship between two human beings. Josh’s weaponization of love is not so different at all from the manipulation of love by other emotionally manipulative partners. Josh genuinely believes that his manipulation –– with the backstop of Iris’ programming –– will make her unable to defy him.
Thus, when Iris is ultimately able to overcome her programmed love for Josh, she becomes utterly human. She has control over her reactions to the deepest, most complicated level of feeling which humans can have. Josh’s treatment of Iris stems from the weaponization of her body and the subjugation of her mind because she is originally seen as non-human. But in doing so, he inadvertently brings her so close to humanity that she becomes indistinguishable.
While “Companion” is an exciting romp through the wishful-thinking-inspired consequences of sex robots for incels everywhere, it’s also a story about control over love and the self –– perhaps that’s what makes us truly human.
Contact the editors responsible for this article: Ivy Buck, Norah Catlin
