There are a few layers to Companion. Remove all the conversation around technology and artificial intelligence, and you have a straightforward story about the dynamics between men and women, specifically toxic masculinity and control.
Iris Versus Josh
Companion explores similar territory to recent films like Blink Twice and Heretic. Immaculate is about female autonomy, though more focused on the church than “men” in general.
From this perspective, the sci-fi aspects of the movie are simply ways to defamiliarize the act of control. A grounded story would have Iris be a normal person who has been manipulated into a state of submission, like Elisabeth Moss’s character in Invisible Man. But, instead, that concept’s refreshed by having the control be through an app on a phone. Same topic, but the film can explore it in its own, unique way that differs drastically from how the other aforementioned movies went about it.
You see this grounded style of manipulation in practice near the end, when Iris, fully independent, confronts Josh. She points a gun at him and keeps threatening to pull the trigger. This is the dialogue:
- Josh: What is this, Iris? Why did you come back here?
- Iris: I wanted…I needed to tell you to your face: the days of you controlling me are over. From this moment on, I control my own actions. You were nothing to me.
- Josh: Jesus Christ, Iris.
- I: Don’t come any closer!
- J: You still don’t get it, do you?
- I: I’m serious, Josh. You take another step, and I’ll shoot you.
- J: Yeah, that’s exactly my point.
- I: I told you, Teddy changed my settings. I can kill you now.
- J: Oh, yeah. I know that you can. But you won’t. You loved me too much. I don’t need a phone to control you. I’m part of you. You think I’m nothing to you? I’m everything to you.
At this point, Josh has turned into a physical manifestation of Iris’s trauma. Even though Iris is, technically, free of Josh (we see that the phone no longer works as a remote control), this confrontation, narratively speaking, is existential. It’s about having closure and emotional freedom. Think about the many people, of all genders, who are victims of emotional and physical abuse. Even after they’re technically safe and in the clear, the trauma can live on, as part of the person, continuing to haunt them.
Iris could have left after Teddy gave her autonomy. Instead, she confronts Josh in order to take her power back.
In a novel, the author could describe what Iris is feeling and show her dealing with trauma and finding closure through internal monologue and omniscient description. In film, that kind of interiority doesn’t really exist outside of voice overs that are usually cheesy. So everything is externalized. That conversation that precedes the final fight between the two is the movie expositing to the audience that this is now about total closure.
Companion’s final shot embodies Iris’s journey. On the road, she pulls up next to a car with a couple. The man’s driving and yapping about something. The woman, from the passenger seat, looks over at Iris. And Iris is the one driving herself. And you get the sense that the other woman sees something she wants—freedom, independence, the power to take the wheel and steer.
It’s Not Too Late To Open Your Eyes
Iris starts and ends the movie with a speech about awareness. Quote:
- We’re all just stumbling around, directionless, no sense of meaning, no sense of purpose. I know that might sound super depressing, but, honestly, I think it’s a good thing. Because it makes us appreciate the other times. Those brief, transcendent moments when the lights flicker on, the black cloud parts, and you see the world for what it really is. And, suddenly, there’s meaning. Suddenly, there’s purpose.
I think Drew Hancock wanted to prod viewers into self-reflection. That’s why he had Iris use third- and second-person. “We’re all just stumbling around.” “You see the world for what it really is.” I think Hancock is legitimately asking you if you have a Josh in your life. And it doesn’t have to be a significant other. It can be your phone, a video game, a job—anything that robs you of your sense of purpose.
Look at Josh. He has a big speech about how he deserves more. How it’s unfair that he has a one-bedroom apartment and doesn’t make a lot of money and isn’t successful. He couldn’t even get a real girlfriend. So what does he do? He resorts to an AI girlfriend. He has a self-driving car. He plans to murder and rob Sergey.
He’s a perfect example of someone who has lost their sense of purpose and uses technology to take the easy route. Technology has become for him, for Eli, a crutch. Kat’s doing something similar with her relationship with Sergey. It’s not meaningful, but something she does because it allows her access to superficial pleasures.
You don’t have to be like the humans in the story. They’re negative examples. You want to be like Iris. Someone who fights to regain agency. This is your one life. In the words of Shawshank Redemption: get busy living or get busy dying.
That’s why “Emotion” plays at the end. Look at the lyrics:
- It’s over and done
- But the heartache lives on inside
- And who is the one you’re clinging to
- instead of me tonight?
- And where are you now
- Now that I need you?
- Tears on my pillow
- Wherever you go
- I cry my a river
- That leads to your ocean
- But you never see me fall apart
- In the words of a broken heart
- It’s just emotion that’s taken me over
- Tied up in sorrow, lost in my soul
- But if you don’t come back
- Come home to me, darling
- You know that there’ll be
- Nobody left in this world to home me tight
- Nobody left in this world to kiss good night
The song is from the perspective of someone in a state of dependence. The emotion has taken over. It’s used ironically. Iris, at the end, is someone who battled those emotions and won. She’s no longer tied up in sorrow or lost in her soul. She’s free.
Technology As A Tool
Companion also contains commentary on technology as a tool. Kind of like how Jurassic Park makes a case that it’s not the science that’s wrong, necessarily, but capitalism rushing to utilize science before it’s tested and best practices can be put into place.
Here, it’s not that technology is wrong, but people utilizing technology in ways it’s not supposed to be used, ignoring safety guidelines. Time and time again, Josh thinks he’s concocted some great plan, only for the technology to not work how he expected it to. Like when he takes control of Patrick and turns Patrick’s aggression up to 100%. In the moment, he doesn’t think anything of it. But it results in Patrick murdering both Deputy Hendrix and Kat, much to Josh’s chagrin.
When used responsibly, technology can be a book to someone’s life. Look at Eli and Patrick. They genuinely loved one another. When used irresponsibly, calamity can occur.
Drew Hancock Explains Companion
- From an interview writer-director Drew Hancock did with Bloody Disgusting:
- I just worry too much about accidentally ingesting too much, and then you’re unconsciously ripping it off, so I don’t. I didn’t watch M3GAN. I know [Companion’s] not like M3GAN, but I didn’t want to accidentally take something from it. I didn’t want Stepford Wives.
- I would rather watch something like A Marriage Story and think about the movie as a metaphor for a toxic relationship. When you give the directives to all the actors and all of the department heads, it’s like, well, this isn’t a sci-fi movie. Let’s not think about this as a sci-fi movie. This is a breakup movie. This is about a woman finding empowerment through the discovery of self, who she is, her place in the universe, and an acceptance of what she is.
- From an interview with Forbes, focusing on characters.
- The one thing I know I needed from Josh was someone who just oozed charisma, because immediately he’s saying awful things. He’s immediately telling a woman to smile and act happy, and there’s no version of that that is coming from a good place. I was like, “Okay, I need someone who has a boyishness to them, because this shouldn’t come from a place of maliciousness. It should come from a place of this person just doesn’t know any better.”
- …
- Iris was much more difficult because she’s two characters in one; there’s the character in the first half, which she’s docile, passive, and submissive. And then there’s Iris in the second half, when she’s literally activated, finds empowerment, and stands up to Josh.
- On the title:
- Companion was always the title of the movie. It made complete sense. This is already existing technology that’s being used right now. There are Irises that look like human beings, but they are companion robots. Also, the word “companion” has this passivity within itself. It’s a title that gives her less agency because she’s there to support someone else, and I thought that was perfect from the beginning, even before I started writing it. Josh’s nickname for Iris, Beep Boop, also came early. I was trying to think of nicknames they could have for each other, and it popped into my head. It sounds like what someone would have as a cute pet nickname that could have a deeper meaning. It’s actually bim being a little bit of a jerk, because she doesn’t know she’s a robot, and he’s just rubbing it in her face by calling Beep Boop, which is such a Josh thing to do.
