Companion (2025) | REVIEW

Directed by Drew Hancock — Screenplay by Drew Hancock.

In the marketing for this film (more on this later), trailers have highlighted the fact that this new genre-bendy flick is the product of the studio behind The Notebook, arguably the most well-known American romance film, and the creators of Barbarian, the hugely surprising horror film with multiple tricks up its sleeves from 2022. It’s a good marketing narrative that does communicate the film’s genre fluidity from one thing to another from certain scenes to certain scenes. But, in actuality, this is the brainchild of writer-director Drew Hancock, a Blue Mountain State writer, who, to be honest, has crafted something quite entertaining for his feature directorial debut. 

Drew Hancock’s Companion follows Iris (played by Sophie Thatcher), a young woman, who is a devoted girlfriend to Josh (played by Jack Quaid), who she met and instantly fell for in a grocery store ‘meet cute,’ which is such a powerful memory to her. Around the start of the film, Josh and Iris are on their way to spend time with Josh’s good friends Eli (played by Harvey Guillén), Patrick (played by Lukas Gage), and Kat (played by Megan Suri), at the lake house home of Kat’s boyfriend, Sergey (played by Rupert Friend). Things start to go in the wrong direction, when Kat continues to disrespect Iris. Soon a violent incident between Sergey and Iris occurs, which leads to a revelation that changes everything for Iris.

Other than Oscar-contenders getting wide releases, film releases in January have a pretty poor track record, as the month has often been referred to as something of a dumping ground. However, Companion is the rare January release that often rules. Not only is it a solid launching pad for Yellowjackets-star Sophie Thatcher, as she here gets to play multiple facets of her character, but it also, like Barbarian, has multiple tricks hidden up its sleeves, as well as subtle but effective set-up and multiple equally effective and fun payoffs. The film also stops just short of overstaying its welcome, and it gets a lot out of its genre-bendy nature, as it has elements of both comedy, sci-fi, and horror, with the comedy often being front-loaded, including in recurring scenes depicting meet-cutes. Some might say that it is tonally a little bit difficult to get a grasp of given the goofiness of certain scenes, but the tonal balancing act mostly works. The film also features Jack Quaid in a prominent role, and it’s fun to see him, whose mom is obviously rom-com royalty, in a film that features scenes from that genre. Quaid is also just really good at playing the type of character that he is playing here, a self-proclaimed ‘nice guy’ with a dark secret like he did previously to great effect in the Scream reboot — here, his and Thatcher’s performances are extremely entertaining.

It is, however, quite difficult to talk about the film any further without spoiling certain elements and reveals, which brings me back to the marketing. Although the (great) first trailer was vague about what exactly was going on in this film, the second trailer, disappointingly, spells out a major reveal. It reminded me of the marketing campaign for 2024’s Abigail, which, I think, would’ve faired a lot better if it had kept certain elements of its premise a secret. But the reveal here also really changes the genre. So, because it is difficult to fully get around my thoughts on this film without revealing this element (which, to be fair, is revealed relatively early in the film), the remainder of this review will talk about this reveal and its impact on the film, so there’s your friendly spoiler warning. 

Still there? Good. Now, what is eventually made clear is that this is a lot more of a science-fiction film than the initial trailer had indicated. As is revealed around the end of the first act, Iris is actually a robot that Josh bought to be with him, hence the title. It is a really cool reveal that I think would work even better, if you don’t know anything about the film going in. Lukas Gage also gets to play with a certain sci-fi genre archetype, which he does quite well. Inevitably, Drew Hancock’s Companion will be compared to Ex_Machina, The Terminator, and Her quite a bit, which is fair given how it sort of resembles the former of the two quite a lot. Let me be clear, Companion is much more of a lightweight film than those modern masterpieces, but it is nonetheless a really fun time at the movies with clever sci-fi setup breadcrumbs, silly comedic bits, and solid acting from the lead cast that is about both gender politics and getting back at controlling significant others. I liked it quite a bit.

7.5 out of 10

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.