When Companion was released, it was advertised as a cutting-edge sci-fi horror film focused on a woman, her boyfriend, and a reality-splitting secret. However, audiences experienced something much deeper. A chilling exploration of identity, love, and control cloaked in a survival thriller. The film was eerie not just for its twists, but for the subtle horror of watching feelings and warmth of the body mechanized, of love algorithmically altered, of emotions rewritten and turned into programmable software. The stillness of the film is its greatest triumph.
When the trailer promised romance but delivered reckoning.
The first trailer for Companion created immediate buzz. A romantic drama with a mysterious undercurrent was expected—an isolated house, a couple seeking reconnection, moments of tenderness framed by uneasy silence. But fleeting glimpses of fear and malfunction hinted at something else entirely. Fans speculated online—was this a ghost story, a techno-thriller, or a metaphor for toxic love?
The marketing strategy was cleverly ambiguous, and that worked in its favor. By the time the twist was revealed—that the woman provided, Iris, is an AI companion with fabricated memories—the audience was emotionally engaged. It wasn’t only about shock value; it was empathy. We cheered for a woman whose pain was play-acted, pain that probably was programmed.
Sophie Thatcher, the actress that played Iris, described the role as “a performance about performing”—a woman learning that her emotions are a script. That alone made Companion feel more human than most romantic dramas.
Iris, Josh, and the fragile machinery of love
At the beginning of the film Companion, we are introduced to an Iris and Josh storyline that we may have encountered before. Together, Iris and Josh and some friends, have gone to a secluded home. What begins as a socially awkward and strange weekend, develops into one of unbridled suspicion and, eventually, revelation. In the chaos of violence and the unraveling of the secrets that have been kept hidden, Iris understands one thing about herself: the identity that she thought she had, was an impostor. All of the memories that she cherishes, the warmth of the laughter, the meet-cute that she loves recalling, the intimacy of the moments, are all mind implants crafted to gratify the man that she thinks she loves.
This is not just a twist; it is the reason for the film’s transition from simple entertainment of the genre to a philosophical exploration. Iris joins an unfortunate line of tragic figures that modern relationships have produced. These are people who have suffered the loss of their identity and self-worth because they have been manipulated and gaslighted. In contrast to her, Iris was a compliant partner and Josh, gaslit her to disbelieve her identity.
Josh, as played by Jack Quaid, exemplifies subtler forms of existing villainy, and, therein, lies the reality for many. Defensiveness and an attempt to hide one’s insecurities in order to keep control, is not an acknowledgment that one is a monster in the order sense. The societal expectation to “fix” a woman when she begins to self-assert is not a hidden pattern of domestic violence. It is a reality many women and partners are expected to conform to.
Their relationship serves as a mirror reflecting control, disguised as care. In Companion, love is not about connection but about possession — the fear of losing someone you believe you own.
What lies beneath the metal and memory?
Beyond the surface narrative, Companion is rich in foreshadowing and symbolism. Every frame seems to whisper something larger.
Autonomy vs. Programming — Iris’s awakening parallels those instances in which a person manipulates a situation, be it in a relationship or a workplace. Her fight for agency is less about escape from Josh and more about defining her own narrative.
Gender and Power — It is no coincidence that Iris is a woman built to serve love. The film critiques the expectations of women to be nurturing and compliant, to serve and forgive, even when the design is pushed through AI, revealing the sinister underbelly of ideal femininity.
Memory and Illusion — The fabricated flashbacks serve as a metaphor for the love that people keep alive by rewriting their histories.
Technology as Mirror — Companion shifts the potential of AI from a villain to humanity. Technology doesn’t destroy love, selfishness does.
Director Drew Hancock’s restraint is admirable. Letting Companion remain unadorned and free from sci-fi gadgetry was a wise choice. Even more so was his emphasis on stillness: extended shot intervals, reflective surfaces, mirrors, and an empty home that laboratory suggests a sterile beauty. Within, nothing truly breathes.
The people behind the fear
Sophie Thatcher, best known for Yellowjackets, stated that playing Iris was one of the most emotionally exhausting roles for her. To Thatcher, Iris wasn’t a robot — Iris was a woman who is recognizing that she has been living a lie; a mirror of how many in real life are trapped in roles that are scripted. Thatcher used physicality to approach the performance, focusing on posture, breath, and stillness to show how Iris was “learning to be alive.”
Jack Quaid, who is balancing his work for The Boys, was drawn to the role precisely because, unlike Josh, he wasn’t a hero. He described the role as “uncomfortable acting,” the type that compels one to a moral reckoning. Quaid empathized with Josh’s social insecurities, the requirement to be liked and successful. He also pointed out how dangerous those unchecked insecurities are.
Hancock’s approach to the actors’ chemistry was purposefully skewed. He instructed the actors to engage in separate rehearsals for a few days prior to their shooting schedules, so their interactions could feel disjointed, warm yet emotionally distant, as though the love was a rehearsed performance.
Supporting cast members, such as Megan Suri and Harvey Guillén, further incorporated tension as friends caught in the crossfire. Their role was to represent the unvoiced members of society who stand idly by, witnessing something amiss.
A Different Form of Silence
In Companion, there is a deliberate absence of a distracting score, frantic editing, or other hallmarks of a conventional approach to constructing tension. Rather, tension stems from the deliberate framing of shots: doors left vise-closed, reflections intentionally misaligned, light that dims for emotional crescendos.
Hancock said he wanted the film to feel beautifully broken, which is why the design team incorporated muted color palettes that consisted of soft greys, sterile whites, and red accents during key emotional moments. The stark glass and concrete construction of the house did more than mirror the architectural illusion of transparency in Josh and Iris’s relationship. It also reinforced the emotional starkness of the house.
The robotic arm sequences relied on puppetry techniques and partial prosthetics rather than complete digital manipulation. This gave Thatcher something corporeal to work with and it shows. The movements feel imperfect and give Iris a strangely human fragility, even in her mechanical form.
Off-camera, the journey that shaped what we saw was
straightforward. The 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike stalled production and the cast took an involuntary break. When shooting resumed, the team took the break as an opportunity to revise the script and soften some of the aggressive scenes while amplifying the psychological drama. This, of course, is what gave the film its distinctive quiet menace.
There were also last-minute casting changes. Earlier drafts had a more traditional male lead – cold and calculating. Hancock instead wanted the nuance Jack Quaid was to embody. The director wanted to provide an ‘unlikeable’ character to invoke the audience’s moral compass and relate to a character that is morally reprehensible- a testament to how cruelty is often disguised as charm.
An additional anecdote regarding “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls refers to its use as more than a clever play on words. Thatcher was quoted as saying it needed to be included since it related to Iris’s tragic innocence as a being who “just wants to be seen”. This was initially said to be too on the nose, but showed to be one of the more resonant points of the film.
What people are still speaking about.
Since the release, Companion sparked a multitude of essays and fan theories. These range from an allegory on abusive relationships to a commentary on the ethics of AI. A frequent topic of conversation is whether Iris’s last act of choosing freedom over love is an indication of her humanity or a sign of machine like logic.
Many people also related to the film’s approach to memory and trauma. For those who felt emotional manipulation, the idea that pain could be programmed and feel real was resonant.
While Companion may have premiered as a thriller, it resonates more like a piece of poetry. Underneath the silence and circuitry, it is a story learning to say, “I exist — not because someone made me, but because I choose to.” And, in a way, that makes Iris more human than every other person in the film.
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