Companion (2025): Movie Review
A surprise January Thriller/Horror film that's a flawed but fun ride.
2025’s Companion is an incredibly satisfying thrill ride that goes from intriguing to “Holy Shit,” by the time we reach its end. It definitely at least to me was more of a pleasurable comedic filled 97 minutes that falls short of being something I would call truly great but it has more than enough compelling themes surrounding the modern state of technology dependence in our world today, shocking twist, and two great central performances from Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid. Anyone who has seen Companion (including me) would suggest that you go into your viewing of this film as blind as humanly possible but a brief description would entail its a story surrounding Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and her Boyfriend Josh visiting a lakeside estate for the weekend when a sudden death leads to a chain of reveals and events for Iris and her friends at the house.
Tip-toeing around spoilers elements as much as I can Companion is the type of film that wears its influences and themes on its sleeves, but never in a way that feels frustrating as a viewer and manages to remain incredibly funny throughout. The commentary of the film mostly surrounds not only just the scariness of technology gone wrong, but also a certain type of asshole boyfriend that I very much appreciate the film delving into considering it seemingly not as present in most of today's media as the typical plain jerk character, and that’s the “nice guy” in disguise. A person that thinks what he or she is doing is in the right because of some sick moral justification that they make and that applies perfectly the thecharacter of Josh. Obviously, Jack Quaid has proven himself as a more than capable actor in the grand scheme of things but I love how he mixes the certain elements of what we know he’s good at already but also a side we rarely see from him. He’s mostly playing the nerdy dorky shy nice guy and that’s present in the vast majority of the film's first half before the main reveal and Turing point he has that leads him to show his obvious true colors of what he is like in the lot more of a dark and condescending manner more akin to his work in scream 5 (2022) and it elevates what feels like what otherwise would’ve been trite feeling material if not performed correctly. Of course, Sophie Thatcher (The boogeyman, Heretic, Yellowjackets) is the lead in the film and her character of Iris plays a different type of “final girl” than we're used to from a horror film like this but sells the comedy and themes of the film incredibly well, especially when she finally takes her agency in the 3rd act. Simply put the film would not work nearly as well without these two.
The supporting cast also has a lot of incredibly great and hilarious moments as well, I think specifically Harvey Guillén (Eli) and Lukas Gage (Patrick) are particularly great here as another couple in the story that has their secrets, Gage (for Smile 2 fame) in particular has some great moments to shine in the third act and even has his small arc in the story. I do think despite the clever elements at play here with this truly fucked up wacky version of a meet-cute between Iris and Josh, the other thematic elements of Josh also being a tech bro loser that is seemingly more common maybe could have been expanded a bit more here and there throughout the narrative and the film overall isnt much diffeent from past social commentaries we've seen on the big screen recently, like the recent Blink Twice as just one example. I also unfortunately feel that only Megan Suri (Kat) while also still funny is the only member of the cast that failed to make any lasting impression on me while watching. I would also say that I honestly felt that if anything, the film could’ve been longer, but I'm just rambling at this point.
I really do suggest that you watch Companion this weekend if you have the time. It’s a pretty fun movie to watch this January if you have yet to see anything else. It’s a more than solid modern satire mixing a fucked up relationship with our modern dependence on technology that feels incredibly refreshing to see today. Apologies in advance if I was a tad bit vague as again if, you watch this it best you know as little as possible but I would 100% recommend that you find what may be your new film companion and plug into Companion in theaters January 31st.