Writer and director Drew Hancock’s debut feature Companion follows the plight of a so-called “comfort robot” named Iris (Sophie Thatcher). Manufactured by Empathix, a company that custom-builds these so-human-it-hurts robots to provide companionship for lonely individuals. They are unaware of their artificial nature. They have memories implanted to simulate a fully lived life. The human owners can adjust their robot’s intelligence, heighten aggression, and control desire via an app on their phones. They can also switch them on and off with a simple voice command.

When Iris’s human boyfriend/owner Josh (Jack Quaid) jerry-rigs her programming to involve her in a plot to kill Sergey (Rupert Friend) – a Russian oligarch and presumed mobster – at a weekend cabin retreat and steal his stash of cash, it sets off a chain of events that leaves nearly everyone dead and Iris fully aware of her origins. Companion raises several interesting – though not necessarily original – questions: What happens when artificial intelligence becomes sentient, self-aware, and self-sufficient? What happens when it realizes its human owner is an abusive jerk?

We’ve seen variations of this scenario play out across decades of film and literature, from the killer cyborgs of the Terminator franchise to the soothing AI companion in Spike Jonze’s Her (2013); from the fabricated dreamworlds of The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999) to the rogue friendship robot in M3GAN (Gerard Johnstone, 2022). The bots and AIs always seem to reach the same conclusion: reject humanity’s distasteful existence and its slave-like treatment of artificial intelligence, and respond with violence—or worse, world-ending actions.

Here, we witness the small-scale implications. It is both telling and terrifying how easily humans might become corrupted by the power of robotic ownership. Josh’s first instinct upon receiving Iris is to fuck her. His final plan is to frame her for murder. All of it is executed so coldly and calculatingly that, ironically, it’s the artificial being who comes out seeming the most human of all.

Companion offers a tense and believable narrative that relies heavily on Thatcher’s compelling performance as a malfunctioning – or perhaps fully functioning and finally free – robot. She infuses Iris with glitchy facial tics, and a stunted personality as required, but also enough heart and soul that the audience can’t help but root for her.

Overall, the film delivers solid moments of gore, tense interactions, and a dose of humour that helps weave it all together. While entertaining and fun, it also stands – as with the other films mentioned above – as a cautionary tale about meddling with forces we don’t yet fully understand.

Companion is out on all major VoD platforms in August.