'Companion': No Such Thing as Making Love to Order
Drew Hancock's terrific debut feature highlights tech's inherent misogyny.
“These are crazy times for A.I. personal assistants. Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Viv. Is there any reason you guys give them all female names? I’m surprised there isn’t one just called ‘mommy.’” - Chelsea Peretti
Spoilers ahead for Companion.
For as long as it has existed, the tech industry has been a male-dominated field. Even as Silicon Valley becomes a larger force in our lives, men outnumber women in tech by a ratio of about three to one. While this is reflective of larger gender imbalances in society, the fact remains that imbalances in tech tend to surface like how bigger, flagship phones are made for men and women have to deal (you can read more about things like this in Caroline Criado Perez’s 2019 book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men). If the terms could ever be set for romance, then tech guys would likely set them poorly, eager to offer measures of control but lacking the introspection to note problematic biases.
This is where we arrive in Drew Hancock’s Companion, the first great film of 2025, and a thoughtful satire about how supposedly modern men still see romantic relationships as measures of control and dominance. The film introduces us to a supposed romance between Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid), although there does seem to be something a bit off between the two, or at least with Iris. The two go for a weekend away with friends at a luxurious, isolated house in the woods belonging to the wealthy Sergei (Rupert Friend). At one point, Sergei attempts to sexually assault Iris, and she stabs him to death with a knife. Covered in blood, Iris returns to the house where Josh then powers her down. Iris is a robot.
In the world of Companion, “love” robots now exist. They don’t know they’re robots, and they believe their memories are real instead of programming. Josh and his friend Kat (Megan Suri) hacked Iris to remove her safeguards (like being unable to harm a human) so they could kill Sergei and rob his vault of $12 million in cash. When a sentimental Josh attempts to say goodbye to Iris before restoring her to the factory settings, she escapes with his phone, which allows her to amplify her intelligence and perhaps chart her destiny if she can flee from Josh and his greedy pals.
The way Silicon Valley likes to present itself is as an industry of wizards who make things so wondrous that they can give you what you want before you even know you want it. The first ads for the iPad literally referred to it as “magical.” Magic is an easier way to think of technology than products produced through sweat, labor, coding, metal, and trade-offs. The tech industry has so thoroughly become a part of our lives that it changed our relationships to our desires, and so now we demand satisfaction on a near-instantaneous basis. The goal is to remove friction even though friction is typically where we grow and mature.
The robot technology in Companion is sci-fi a leap, but the existence of male consumers who desire a frictionless relationship with a woman certainly isn’t. In the relationship between Iris and Josh, we see that under these limits of control, Iris can’t fully live and Josh can’t fully love. They only have a simulacrum of these things.
We’re rooting for Iris not only because Josh is a greedy, self-centered loser, but because through her struggle, we see that her life and freedom are intertwined. Life isn’t defined by memories or even emotions but by the ability to make choices independent of what a dominant force may want. Iris is in an abusive relationship, and technology has created a way to smooth that over so that guys like Josh can be as abusive as they want. Iris isn’t human, but what do we make of any technology that encourages the worst impulses of its users? This is more than merely a violent video game as Iris’ actions can impact the real world as we see with Sergei’s murder.
We also see that life is possible for these robots through the relationship between Josh and Kat’s friend Eli (Harvey Guillén) and his companion, Patrick (Lukas Gage). Even though companion upgrades are available, Eli and Patrick have been together for ten years, and while the origins of their bond are as artificial as Iris and Josh’s, the human and robot have grown to love each other. Patrick has even surpassed his programming where robots aren’t allowed to lie; he hid his self-awareness of his robotic existence from Eli because he didn’t want to endanger their relationship.
I don’t think it was an accident that in showing how there could be a positive romantic relationship between humans and robots, Hancock depicts it as between two men. Similarly, it’s telling that in Maria Schrader 2021’s sci-fi drama, I’m Your Man, you have a richer relationship between a human woman (Maren Eggert) wrestling with her loneliness and a test program involving an android designed for romance (Dan Stevens). Where things tend to get ugly is if you have a man in control of a woman, which is a reflection of a patriarchal society.
The larger indictment in Companion is that when faced with broken men who have no idea how to relate to women, the world finds a way to create more subservient women rather than working to fix the men. The technology we receive isn’t there to make the world better; it’s there to make it easier for the systems that already exist. Josh has no trouble giving in to his worst impulses because the path is made for him to do so. He fails to realize that his persistent sense of grievance is only exacerbated by a world that never tells him he might have to be a better person. That’s why he keeps chasing the next thing that he thinks will make him happy whether it’s a hot robot girlfriend or millions of dollars of someone else’s money. Josh feels entitled to these things and in his defense, the world tells him, “Of course you do, and you’re perfect just the way you are.”
Josh, fool that he is, thinks that getting whatever he wants is the same thing as love. But tech doesn’t love you. It can’t. No matter how many prompts you type into ChatGPT, no A.I. can love you because love requires the freedom to say “no.” A man who cannot hear that word cannot love, no matter what the tech industry invents.
Recommendations
I’ve reached the point where I prefer to get my political recaps from Pajiba because the news analysis from major outlets is simply gross now. When Trump openly mused about taking over Gaza and removing all the Palestinians, the Times’ article originally referred to it as “audacious” (they later changed it to “brazen,” which still feels like underselling “ethnic cleansing.”) At least Dustin Rowles seems to understand the state of play, and while I don’t always agree with him, I know he’s not trying to cater to powerful interests (and it’s not even the main thing Pajiba does, so it’s not like he’s hoping for some outrage bait). Anyway, this is a good way to recap a day’s news rather than being swallowed alive by it.
Over in 4K recommendations, you should pick up American Movie, which is one of the best documentaries you’ll likely ever see. It has a Christopher Guest-mockumentary style of humor, but that belies the deep pathos of chasing the American Dream even if just trying to find a way to make your movie. It’s certainly worth a blind buy at $17 (45% off).
Note: I receive a small percentage of sales made through my Amazon Associates links.
What I’m Watching
In theaters on Friday, you can catch Heart Eyes, a mash-up of a romantic comedy and a slasher that shouldn’t work, but I kind of loved it. The premise is straightforward: for the last two Valentine’s Days, a masked maniac known as “The Heart Eyes Killer,” gruesomely murders couples on the holiday. Now he’s in Seattle and sets his sights on Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding), who he mistakes as a couple even though they’ve only had their meet-cute. Now they have to survive the night as they also fall for each other. Again, this should not work, but the sly direction from Josh Ruben (who you may recognize from his appearances on Game Changers) makes the whole movie sing.
What I’m Reading
The Many, Many Questions Raised by the Ending of The Brutalist by Dana Stevens [Slate] - For my paid subscribers, I wrote at length about The Brutalist, but only one aspect of it in a film where there’s much to discuss. While I don’t have as much of an issue with the ending as Stevens, she makes good points about how it seems to upend our perspectives once more yet in a way that may not be as satisfying as the film’s first two parts. I think it speaks to the strength of the movie that I wouldn’t mind watching it a third time to better explore the ending despite the film’s epic runtime.
Can Characters Come Alive Without People? by Hank Azaria [The New York Times] - I love the way the Times made this article out of Azaria’s op-ed by showing how his skill as a voice actor brings to life his repertoire of characters from The Simpsons. Azaria’s point is that while A.I. may be able to scrape all of his voice acting from the show, it can’t make the artistic choices an actor does, nor does it have the spontaneity to improvise or react accordingly. Even if you take A.I. out of the equation, voice acting, as you can see, values certain skills. Not any celebrity can roll into a voice booth and do it well.
There Is No Going Back by Jamelle Bouie [The New York Times] - I have to imagine that even people who voted for Donald Trump in the last election may be slightly appalled that Elon Musk is now basically running the government (Trump appears to be Head of State, taking on ceremonial duties but uninterested in governing). Musk, who doesn’t even have an official job, is sending his young goons to tear out the wiring of the government because he’s arrogant enough to think he can make it better. This is scary stuff, and Bouie points out that there’s not much in the way of guardrails as even the Republican majorities in Congress seem content to let him wreak havoc. Perhaps Musk can keep blaming “D.E.I.” for all his screw-ups, but it’s pretty clear who’s at fault. Whether the American public will pick up on that remains to be seen.
What I’m Hearing
I’m fully addicted to You Must Remember This again, and I felt it was important to share this episode about Lupe Velez. If you know that name, you probably know it from the pilot episode of Fraiser where Roz (Peri Gilpin) recounts how Velez died:
This recounting arose from Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon. The problem: Almost none of it is true, and I’m glad Karina Longworth set the record straight.
What I’m Playing
It’s not really a “game” but I’ve taken to winding down with the Sandbox app on iPad. You paint by numbers to create pixel art. I find it incredibly relaxing, and a far better way to end my day than doomscrolling through social media.
