I haven't seen Companion—the new movie from the creators of Barbarian—yet, but I would never have guessed the direction the film was going to take until I watched the official trailer released by Warner Bros. Needless to say, if you've only seen the teaser so far, I advise against watching the trailer because it gives away a significant twist.
I'm sure the movie still has many other surprises, but I can't help being a tad disappointed that they didn't keep the twist a secret.
Turn back now if you don't want to know anything more about Companion and don't intend to watch the trailer.
Written and directed by Drew Hancock, Companion revolves around a breakup gone terribly wrong. The trailer reveals that Sophie Thatcher's character, Iris, is actually a robot designed to be the ultimate girlfriend experience. Through voiceover, we learn that Iris eventually tries to kill her boyfriend, Josh (Jack Quaid).
It sounds like Josh takes advantage of his robo-girlfriend to turn her into a willing sexbot. In the trailer, it appears a lot of the story happens at a cabin hangout. Josh brings Iris along with him and, this is my own personal theory, I think Lukas Gage's character Patrick may also be a robot, one belonging to Harvey Guillén's Eli.
Even though the trailer gives away the sci-fi elements, Quaid tells Entertainment Weekly that the movie has many more twists in store, even claiming that Companion has "one of the best scripts" he's ever read.
Hancock wasn't thrilled by the studio revealing these plot points in the trailer but understands the necessity to "sell" the film. Personally, I think Companion had enough going for it already that the sci-fi twist could have been kept hidden and maintained audience interest. But per the EW article, this "twist" comes early on in the story, so it's not necessarily as big of a reveal as people might anticipate.
10 horror movies about AI gone rogue
For those who are concerned that Companion might be a rehash of the latest run of AI-gone-rogue horror movies we've gotten lately like M3GAN, he says it's actually not like that at all, teasing that his film is unlike any of the other android-centered movies we've seen recently.
"It's not A.I. gone wrong, it's A.I. gone right," Hancock reveals.
Given the rise of AI in real life, it's no surprise we're seeing an uptick of storylines centered around the potential of it going wrong. This year alone we'll see a new season of Black Mirror and M3GAN 2.0. It's clear the AI threat isn't going away in real life or on-screen anytime soon.
Companion begins playing in theaters on January 31, 2025.