Companion’s Biggest Moment Goes So Far Beyond The Trailer

This article contains major spoilers for “Companion.”

Gender-based conflict, violence, and terror are embedded into the fabric of horror. Vampires searching for brides, damsels in distress needing to be saved, “Hitchcock blondes,” and masked slashers hacking up scantily clad babysitters and camp counselors are mainstays of the genre, and the overwhelming majority of horror stories are either exploiting, examining, or subverting the expectations of gender-based violence. However, as film theorist Carol J. Clover so perfectly explained in her essay “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film,” when it comes to horror, “gender is less a wall than a permeable membrane.”

Horror movies are rich with cross-gender identification, and it’s been psychologically theorized that horror fans have a greater capacity for empathy. It’s why cis men watch a film like “Aliens” and easily identify Ellen Ripley as the coolest character without ever believing she’s “lesser-than” for being a woman, and why cis women can watch a movie like “The Thing” and see themselves reflected in the hyper-masculine (and gloriously bearded) R.J. MacReady. Given the do-or-die formula of the genre’s survival stories, horror provides us all with a safe outlet to flex our compassion muscles and learn to identify with characters we want to see survive that may not always look like us.

In Drew Hancock’s fantastic techno-thriller “Companion” (read our review here), Sophie Thatcher’s Iris goes on a weekend getaway with her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) — as well as their couple friends Eli (Harvey Guillén) and his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage), and Kat (Megan Suri) and her sugar daddy Sergey (Rupert Friend) — only to learn that she is actually Josh’s companion robot and all “memories” of their life together (and her life before him) is nothing more than programming. Rather than fall into the stereotypical trappings of a “robot uprising” story, “Companion” is far more interested in telling a story of bodily autonomy and examining the providence of pathetic, insecure men like Josh and the way they treat women — artificial or not.

The film’s biggest shock was fortunately kept out of the marketing materials for “Companion,” when it’s revealed that Patrick is also a companion bot and that he’s known he was a robot for quite some time. But it’s when Josh chooses to also dehumanize Patrick in his fight against Iris that the film’s most fascinating gender politics come into play.

The connective tissue between misogyny and homophobia toward gay men is a lot stronger than many realize. Throughout history across many cultures, the hatred and oppression of gay men was rooted in the perceived similarities gay men had to women. Common barbs like “pansy,” “fairy,” and “sissy” are words used to evoke femininity as an insult, with the even more common pejorative of “fruity” originally used to describe female sex workers. Much has been written about the kindred relationship many gay men find in the final girl character, usually summed up in the shared experience gay men have with women — trying to survive an oppressive, patriarchal world that wants them submissive … or dead. By revealing Patrick as another robot, “Companion” co-signs the intersectional relationship between misogyny and homophobia, and does so with blood instead of ink by showcasing Josh’s treatment of them both.

Josh admits that he bought Iris because he believes he “deserves” a better lot in life than the one he has. He intentionally limited her intelligence to 40%, and while he claims to have had some “fun times” with her, he had no problem jailbreaking her to set her up for murder so he could run away with millions of dollars. He wanted a docile piece of arm candy that was incapable of lying to him, calling him out on his shortcomings, or rejecting his sexual advances, and when he was presented with a better opportunity (killing Sergey and stealing his wealth), he was happy to let Iris take the fall and likely be scrapped for parts.

Conversely, Eli is legitimately in love with Patrick, and the couple wasn’t initially included in Josh and Kat’s plan. They only got on board once Eli realized they’d gain millions if they helped subdue Iris, and Eli fought for Patrick to have a share, even though neither Josh nor Kat thinks he “counts.” The fact Patrick is a robot doesn’t matter to Eli, because he genuinely loves him. Patrick admits that he figured out he was a robot a long time ago, but he wasn’t as devastated to admit it to Eli as Iris was learning about it from Josh because he knows deep down that Eli’s love is reciprocated and real.

The villain of “Companion” is not all men, just entitled chodes like Josh who crave control, treat people they view as “below them” as disposable, and only think about themselves.

Josh shows his true colors even before it’s revealed that Iris and Patrick are robots. He’s constantly instructing Iris how to appear or behave (this isn’t even taking into consideration how he’s intentionally programmed her appearance/intelligence/voice/etc.), he incessantly insults Eli under the guise of “joking,” and he is so clearly in love with Kat and bitter about her not wanting him that he’s made it the entire world’s problem. When his plan falls apart after Iris escapes and the situation escalates (and deteriorates), that’s when his true colors truly begin to unearth themselves from beneath his “Aw, shucks” exterior.

Iris accidentally kills Eli as they struggle for a gun, and even after Kat is willing to admit defeat, Josh jailbreaks and links himself with a heartbroken Patrick so he can use him to clean up his mess and skirt accountability. When Kat is ready to bail, he screams and barks orders at her, motivating her to remind him that she’s not a robot and that he can’t control her. (He retaliates by having Patrick kill her.) When Patrick successfully tracks down Iris and brings her back home, instead of just shutting her down and being done with it, he tortures her for his own amusement. When he lies to the company coming to pick up the “defective” Iris, he even concocts a lie about him and Kat having “will-they, won’t-they” tension as his reasoning for Iris “malfunctioning” and killing everyone before shooting herself in the head.

At every step, Josh blames everything and everyone for his shortcomings and impossible-to-overcome obstacles instead of looking inward for one moment and realizing that maybe, just maybe, he has some internal issues to work through. It was easy to predict from the trailers that Josh was yet another megalomaniacal bastard masquerading as a nice guy, but his treatment of Patrick is a reminder that guys like Josh don’t just hate women, they hate everyone they think they’re “better” than, especially those in close proximity to “femininity.”

And as the movie rightfully reminds us, Josh’s way of thinking isn’t just wrong, it’s dead wrong.