Written and directed by Drew Hancock, Companion stars Jack Quaid as Josh and Sophie Thatcher as his girlfriend, Iris. They go to a secluded lake house for a getaway with his friends, Kat (Megan Suri), who is sleeping with the property’s older, sleazy, Russian owner, Sergey (Rupert Friend), Eli (Harvey Guillén), and his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage).
The opening scene is one of the best I have seen in some time. In typical romcom style, Josh and Iris meet in a grocery store but Iris’ voiceover announces that she will end up killing Josh. Cut to the weekend for the bloody events that lead up to that death.
This is mostly quite inventive stuff. There have been a lot of depictions of the dangers of artificial intelligence in recent years, so it makes a refreshing change to have the exploitative human characters as the bad guys. As a representation of the growing misogyny in our society, and the malign influence of incels, it works well. It also functions nicely as a thriller.
It did, however flag a little about two thirds of the way in, as the story seemed to be treading water, but it ends well enough.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10