Companion makes a good companion piece (pun fully intended) to the recent kaboom, Obsessed.
Both involve emotional attachment that is unfounded and forced, while being manipulated and used by another. Both involve fantastic performances by the female lead. Both involve one shitty-ass “nice guy”
AI is seen to be awful, and in most cases there is evidence in today’s headlines that it may well be the end of us all. But it should surprise no one that some folks would be inspired to abuse it as well. And in the ways that are exemplified here, terribly.
And that abuse leads to entitlement, which leads to a bloody snowball rolling down the mountain of intentions in this quirky nightmare.
Instead of worldwide effects, the AI here is handled in an isolated incident. Therefore, humanity and the artificial intelligence problems are in a real “one can’t exist without the other” scenario. Sophie Thatcher (so great in Yellowjackets and the amazing Heretic) plays the human robot here with a sad far-away aura reminiscent of a Blade Runner replicant. Shades of The Stepford Wives make themselves apparent as well. The discomfort created by that film's "androids" is not at all dissipated by decades of time nor different performers.
Jack Quaid's character, the “owner” of her, is a seeming mensch of a human, yet in reality a dangerous twat; self absorbed despite himself. And he pulls the role off well. He stretches a bit from his parts in The Boys and Neighborhood Watch. His pathetic embrace of entitlement is almost as disgusting as his willingness to abandon all elements of humanity during the execution of a poorly thought out scam. Quaid seems less human than Thatcher at this point.
Harvey Guillen, so transcendent in television's What We Do in the Shadows, adds wonderful humor of a lighter scent (at least at the outset) to the otherwise pitch black comedy.
Thought provoking, sad, and maddening, Companion has many layers and some may even keep you up at night.
Halloween horror? Perhaps not, but oft-terrifying nonetheless. Remember. A human created AI. And many that engineered it are issuing the warnings on it in the news. Like last week's news. Those are probably the good engineers.
What about the bad ones?
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