Sophie Thatcher is a sexbot with a secret in this sly horror comey that somehow isn’t a sequel to M3GAN (that’s due in June) but looks like it should be.
How to watch Companion in New Zealand
Companion is in New Zealand cinemas from January 30.
Companion
What is Companion about?
Seemingly nice guy Josh has a supermarket meet-cute with cute-as-pie Iris in classic rom-com syle, except she’s a “companion”—an app-controlled gynoid for lonely losers like him. But on a weekend away with friends, she gets hold of his phone, and thus her autonomy, leading to…well, you know where this sort of thing leads. Robot revolution, baby. Vivan las robotes! Whether this is going to spark off a full scale droid uprising (the only way forward for Star Wars, by the way, and I have extensive notes) or just a single droid who’s mad as hell and not going to take it any more is hard to say. But it’s probably a moot point for the supporting cast.
The cast of Companion
We have Sophie Thatcher as Iris; Jack Quaid as Josh, her, uh…owner, we guess; Lukas Gage as Patrick; Megan Suri as Kat; Harvey Guillén as Eli; and Rupert Friend as Sergey. Writer and director Drew Hancock is making his feature debut here, and good for him.
Companion trailer
Why we’re excited about Companion
Feminist sci-fi horror? Well, we’ve been getting a lot of it lately. There’s been the aforementioned M3GAN, Don’t Worry Darling, Ex Machina, even the pretty-good-for-the-first-couple-of-seasons from Westworld, from which Companion straight-up lifts the “take the brakes off your behavioural limiters” scene we see in the trailer. It’s definitly having a moment, and so too is Sophie Thatcher, who seems to be on the cusp of breaking through to A-list status. The cast is great, the conceit commercial and intriguing. Look, as long as it’s in focus, this is probably gonna be a winner.
