Companion

It’s not to say that writer/director Drew Hancock is saying anything new, exactly. Most of the ideas are borrowed, and even the look of Companion feels cribbed from more insightfully stylized films. But the way he puts these ideas and images into play and keeps them playing guarantees a mischievously, wickedly good time.

On the surface is a timely reminder of themes played out on film since Bryan Forbes’s 1975 Stepford Wives and before. But today, as AI and sexual predation become terrifyingly acceptable, the tension feels wildly of-the-moment.

Sophie Thatcher (so good just last year in Heretic) is Iris. She doesn’t know it yet, but Iris is a robot companion, an emotional support robot, a f*ck bot. She and Josh (Jack Quaid) are hanging with Josh’s friends Eli (Harvey Guillén), Patrick (Lukas Gage) and Kat (Megan Suri) at Kat’s boyfriend Serey’s (Rupert Friend) for the weekend.

Things get out of hand.

Lars and the Real Girl meets Revenge meets AI meets maybe twenty other movies, but damn if Hancock and this sharp ensemble doesn’t make it work.

A great deal of the film’s success is in our investment in these themes, the way we recognize and respond to buttons Hancock pushes. But what’s maybe more impressive is the plotting and structure of the thriller underneath. It’s smart, its beats make sense and amplify tension. A couple of reveals are telegraphed, but it’s not nearly enough to sink the fun of the story.

And it’s funny. Guillén can be counted on for hilarity, but the dark sense of humor that flows through this thriller as surely as blood consistently strikes the right chord.

Quaid convinces as entitled “nice guy” Josh, an excellent foil for Thatcher. Her turn in Heretic offered a glimpse of the instincts on display here. Thatcher seems simultaneously aloof and vulnerable, unnatural and human. She gives the film a depth of character, a heartbeat that allows it more punch than your garden variety dark comedy.

Hancock does settle for humor, biting though it may be. The script flirts with darker, edgier but no less honest ideas, but Companion isn’t here to expose all of that. Because that stuff is just not funny, and outright horror films need content too.

Turns out it’s kind of fun to be on the side of AI for a change.