With roles in several horror-thriller films and TV, Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets,” “Heretic”) seems here to stay as a new star, and “Companion” might be her best turn. As Iris, she’s one of a tastily awkward group of six (linked by some tight friendships, but also featuring vague animosity and first-time meetings) who vacation at a remote lake cabin owned by inexplicably rich Sergey (Rupert Friend).
Sophie’s acting choices
Iris is the titular girlfriend of Josh (“The Boys’ ” Jack Quaid), who goes back a ways with Kat (Megan Suri), the mistress of Sergey. Josh is also old buddies with Eli (Harvey Guillén), who has brought boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage). Broadly, you’ve seen this “awkwardness emerges from what should be a good and normal time” premise before; examples are “The Rental” (2020) and “Who Invited Them” (2022).
The rest of the cast ably serves the premise, but Thatcher stands out as (although it’s not explicitly stated) an autistic among allistics. She thinks Kat hates her. She clings to Josh and is uncomfortable around others, especially when they drift outside the “polite interactions with new acquaintances” script Iris knows. In general, she is a people pleaser who could use a recharge whereas the other five drink and dance deep into the night.
“Companion” (2025)
Director: Drew Hancock
Writer: Drew Hancock
Stars: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage
Written and directed by Drew Hancock in his breakthrough, “Companion” has a not-quite-meta cheekiness that has emerged in thrillers of recent years; a vibe that says to the audience “We know that you know this is entertainment.” These films can have extreme violence, but it’s safely movie violence. We’re wowed in the moment but not traumatized.
Hancock jumps the tech slightly into the future. We could guess the film is set in about 2035. Josh is not rich, but he owns a nice, self-driving car. Phones and computers are totally integrated, the larger screens foldable for a tidy fit in your pocket.
Within this cohort of near-future thrillers examining our relationship with new tech, though, “Companion” is among the better entries. I recommend it. That’s the end of the spoiler-free part; now I institute a SPOILER WARNING for this film, plus “Sinners” and “Abigail” and a few 20th century films.
The lazy art of the trailer (Spoilers)
One of the most pleasurable parts of “Companion,” in theory, is the reveal at the end of the first act that Iris is a robot. (Josh commands Iris to “shut down,” she goes blank and we smash-cut to black and then start the now-redefined portion of the narrative. It’s a well-staged moment.) I say “in theory,” because somehow I already knew this twist going into the film.
I didn’t watch the trailers or read reviews, other than noting that “Companion” was among the horror-thrillers worth seeing in 2025, yet somehow through the ether I knew about the robot twist. Maybe because it’s on the edge of even the spoiler-free commentary. Maybe people were spoiled by the spoiler-free portion of this post by reading between the lines. The same thing happened to me in regard to knowing this year’s “Sinners” and last year’s “Abigail” are about vampires.
In the trailers for all of these films, the twist is revealed. “Companion’s” publicity team blows it. The teaser trailer includes the shot of Iris’ arm being on fire, which arguably goes right up to the line without crossing it; the poster gets close to the flame, also, with its tagline of “Find someone made just for you.” But then the main trailer unnecessarily includes the line “You jailbroke your sexbot?” At the point that line is delivered, the hook of a bizarre domestic clash has firmly been set. It’s unambiguously an exercise in ruining the surprise.
(The trailer-makers aren’t totally amateurish; they show an ability to wink by announcing that this is from the studio that brought you “The Notebook,” thus indicating the dark comedy of the broad fact that “Companion’s” romance goes way wrong. But the trailer likewise is dishonest by hyping that the film is from the creators of “Barbarian” [incidentally another film where the trailer goes too far]. Hancock had nothing to do with “Barbarian.” I guess “Companion” has the same producers, but in film, producers are not generally creators.)
Giving away the twist in the trailer is universal now, but it was done in the past. “From Dusk Till Dawn’s” trailer spoils the twist that a good crime romp turns into a vampire romp. Somehow I saw that movie in the cheap theater in 1996 without knowing the twist, and I recall enjoying the surprise. It was before the time trailers played on the internet, and luckily I had not been exposed to that trailer.
Sadly, it’s universal now (Spoilers)
More recently, “Abigail” and “Sinners” use the “crime movie turned vampire movie” twist and the trailers spell it all out. This shows distrust by the trailer cutters toward the filmmakers. They don’t see the non-twist portions as being enough to hook a viewer. It’s wrong and lazy; the trailer cutters are making short films out of full-length films, giving us all the nutrition in power-bar form rather than whetting our appetites.
And it hurts the film itself. Imagine if a 1980 trailer for “The Empire Strikes Back” dramatically built up to Darth Vader revealing he’s Luke’s father or a 1999 “Sixth Sense” trailer built up to the twist that Bruce Willis’ character is dead.
But those movies sacrificed a lot at the box office by holding those surprises back, right? Wrong. “Empire” has made $292 million; “Sixth Sense” has made $294 million. “Empire” needed no extra help from a trailer, “Sixth Sense” seemingly did, but instead it was one of the all-time great word-of-mouth successes. (I recall that Fangoria covered “Sixth Sense” a month after it hit theaters; before that, it was off its radar.)
Maybe today’s trailer-makers think word-of-mouth is dead, at first glance an odd position in the internet age. But maybe there’s some truth to it, as it’s hard to break through an individual’s curated algorithms. Revealing the twist will increase the chatter, the theory goes.
Granted, “Companion” is a quite enjoyable film outside of the twist, and we can appreciate Thatcher even further when we know Iris’ status as a robot. Being a Hollywood actress, she’s obviously cute, but she plays up the rubbery nature of her lips and face, as if conveying that – while robot companions are advanced enough to be a mass-market product – the tech is not quite perfected. Her movement is in a middle ground between naturally human and T-800, and she smoothly delivers foreign languages when toggling between her settings.
Sci-fi warnings when the time for warnings has passed (Spoilers)
Like many 21st century films, “Companion” hits that well-read yet oddly flat sci-fi tone wherein it explores themes that were so heady in the mid-20th century but now just seem tragic because we’re on the brink of these events in the real world.
Certainly, Hancock has not crafted a dumb or lazy film, but it’s a little depressing that this type of sci-fi dominates. I suppose it’s hard for writers to dream up plausibly utopian sci-fi, or alternatively, dystopian sci-fi that touches on a theme those 20th century geniuses couldn’t have imagined.
Instead, the Golden Age themes are re-examined, with surprises coming from the degree of expansion or winky angle into the material rather than the raw point that this new thing will soon arrive. In terms of the blurred-line theme and robot motivations, “Companion” is “Blade Runner.” Iris is built and programmed rather than born and taught, yet she “becomes” “human.” She wants more life; she’s the villain yet also the most sympathetic character.
The fact that Kat is a companion to Sergey in the same way that Iris is a companion to Josh is surface-level fascinating, further paralleling “Blade Runner,” in which the human Deckard robotically hunts down human-like robots. But “Companion” doesn’t go as deep as it could with this irony.
By being delivered with a wink rather than earnest, artistic tragedy, does “Companion” illuminate these old themes in new ways? Not really. But maybe for a less-seasoned movie watcher, it will have an impact. More so if that young filmgoer can somehow go in without knowing what they’re about to see.