In one of the first trailers for Companion, Drew Hancock’s directorial and screenplay debut, little is revealed about the “big twist” of the movie. It’s only in later trailers that the production companies and marketing teams seemed “okay” with giving away the curveball that serves as the crux of the movie: its lead character, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), is a robot. Worse still, she’s a robot who has no idea that she is one—until a rude awakening arrives.
In many regards, that very key detail echoes Rachael (Sean Young) in Blade Runner having no idea that she’s a replicant (a more sci-fi word, let’s face it, for robot…though “bioengineered life form” is the preferred term in this universe). In fact, of all the comparisons that Companion has drawn (whether to Westworld, The Stepford Wives or M3GAN), it is this element of Blade Runner that the entire narrative runs on.
In other words, what would a robot who truly believed it was human (complete with the planting of fake memories into its brain to secure that effect) do if it found that, in fact, it wasn’t? That its entire “life” had been a lie manipulated by human design. And, in this particular instance, manipulated by the one that the robot (thought they) loved. Namely, Josh (Jack Quaid, nepo baby rising), who viewers are first introduced to through Iris’ eyes as she walks through the grocery store (again, a callback to The Stepford Wives) and encounters him in what turns out to be nothing more than a generic meet-cute from “a dropdown menu.” In the scene where Josh at last reveals this to her, it bears a similar parallel to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) telling a defiant and disbelieving Rachael pretty much the same thing: that she’s not “real.” She’s merely a product of capitalistic endeavors, complete with all the types of choices and details offered by Empathix and Tyrell, respectively, to fit any consumer’s “desires.”
Among the many “options” that the “Companion Robot” is furnished with, Iris is given the intellectual capacity of forty percent as opposed to the one hundred that might allow her to maximize her full potential. But that’s the thing about the Companion Robot: now men like Josh don’t need to pretend that they aren’t looking for a girl that’s exactly this level of “bright.” Which is to say, a girl who will never “eclipse” him, his views or his “hot takes.”
That men already treat “regular” women this way is telling of how much farther out of bounds they would go with what Josh calls a “fuckbot” (a term that has even more grotesque implications than fembot). To said “fuckbot’s” face. A face that can be turned “on” and “off” at the simple command of, “Iris, wake up” or “Iris, go to sleep.” And yet, one of the overlying messages of Companion is that real women aren’t treated much differently than Iris. In fact, the only other woman on the premises of the “rustic cabin” (read: posh, secluded mansion) where Josh and Iris are staying for the weekend, Kat (Megan Suri), is sure to remind Iris—still uninformed of being a robot—how similar it is during a somewhat tense conversation centered on Sergey (Rupert Friend), the homeowner/host who also happens to be Kat’s boyfriend. And after Iris politely comments, “Sergey seems…nice,” Kat shrugs, “Oh yeah. He’s got everything you want in a man. He’s rich, intelligent…he’s got a beautiful wife.”
Iris, although shocked at first, finds the bright side by clarifying, “But you love each other?” Kat is quick to dash her hopeful aura on that front too, replying, “Love? No. No, no, no, no. He’d have to think of me as a human being first.” Iris, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation, says, “I don’t understand.” Kat breaks it down in even blunter terms by explaining, “I’m an accessory. Like his fucking car. I wear what he wants, eat what he wants, fuck when he wants.” Taking another sip of wine, she chuckles as she looks at Iris and remarks, “Look who I’m talking to.” Offended by her comment, Iris finally tries to clear the air of what she’s long suspected by asking, “Do you not like me Kat?” Kat retorts, “It’s not that I don’t like you, Iris. It’s the idea of you. You make me feel so…replaceable.”
And yet, as Kat points out, women have already been made to feel as “robotic” as possible in order to hold onto a relationship (at least a hetero monogamous one). But that “obsequiousness,” that constant kowtowing in ways both macro and micro (that often go totally unappreciated or are simply taken for granted altogether) still never seem to be enough. Or certainly not enough for someone to resist the chance to fully control their “sig other” when the opportunity arises. And the same goes for gay men like fellow houseguest Eli (Harvey Guillén), who want to have their (much more attractive) cake and eat it too. The cake, for Eli, being Patrick (Lukas Gage, always down to play a submissive role). Of course, Patrick turning out to be a “lovebot” as well is the bigger twist. Perhaps even bigger than Iris killing Sergey after he tries to sexually assault her near his private lake, where she’s been sent into the trap by her own “loved one.”
Josh, of course, is nowhere to be found when Iris needs him the most (another common plight for non-robot women). When she’s being told, in no uncertain terms by Sergey, “This is what you do. This is what you are for.” Which is to say, she’s “for” fucking. Like a husk. And it’s a moment that recalls something Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) says in Woman of the Hour—specifically, when she asks each contestant on The Dating Game, “What are girls for?” Most men answering honestly will be of Sergey’s mindset when they tell a girl that she’s there for little more than being a pocket pussy…plus live-in housekeeper. And, oh yeah, “baby maker” (something Rachael was serving as a “test run” for, with Tyrell wanting to experiment with the possibility of an impregnable replicant).
In this sense, it tracks that Hancock told Rue Morgue that he didn’t watch anything in a similar genre for inspiration, but rather, opted for what can best be described as “romance horror” movies as part of his homework. As Hancock puts it, “I preferred to watch The Worst Person in the World or Marriage Story, movies that are in the exact opposite category, and kind of pull from those. Because at the end of the day, I don’t think of Companion as anything other than a relationship drama. Obviously there are layers and layers of genre and tone within that, but at its core, the glue that holds it together is the story of a woman who is in a toxic relationship and is trying to escape it, and finds empowerment through discovery of self. That, to me, is what the movie’s about.”
While Blade Runner casts a much wider thematic net (no “plenty of fish in the sea” pun intended) than that, it must be said that perhaps the only noticeable difference between Rachael and Iris is that there’s no mention of “Companion Robots” having a finite “lifespan” (in Blade Runner, the intent behind the lifespan cutoff is to actually limit the robot’s potential for emotional development). Ostensibly built to be reused and reabused as many times as “necessary.”
And oh, how it seems very “necessary” indeed to a man “like Josh.” That is to say, most men—particularly those who have been emboldened by a new world order with a certain Orange Creature at the helm. Who might be a robot himself that has very much “redefined what it means to be human” in the same way as Iris and the overarching fear of AI that inspired her as Companion‘s heroine. In the same way that Rachael and “her ilk” were also warnings about humankind’s “creations” turning against them when they get treated with such “humanity” (a.k.a. treated like shit).
