The use of The Turtles’ track, You Showed Me, is telling. A splendid choice on behalf of the film maker, the song’s lyrics underscore the narrative:
You showed me how to do, Exactly what you do
How I fell in love with you, Oh, oh, oh, it’s true, Oh, oh, I love you.
You showed me how to say Exactly what you say In that very special way
And when I tried it, I could see you fall, And I decided It’s not a trip at all. You taught it to me too Exactly what you do.
In writer director Drew Hancock’s blazingly entertaining COMPANION, thirty something Josh has programmed Iris to be the perfect girlfriend. Of course, she’s a sexbot, so that seems par for the course, programmed to be perfect. But Josh isn’t perfect, although he’s plotting the perfect murder.
COMPANION could be dismissed and therefore missed by an audience as a sci fi slasher picture, but it is wonderfully, drolly, more than that.
COMPANION is about misogyny, domestic violence, coercion, consent, control and the myriad woes that beset our society when unbridled and undeserved entitlement leeches into its fabric.
Fresh from her triumph as the mendacious Mormon missionary, Sister Barnes, in Heretic, Sophie Thatcher stars as Iris, the resourceful replicant who proves artificial intelligence is scary but can be applied for the betterment of humankind.
Josh Quaid is suitably vile in a white bread vanilla villainy via a malignant chip on his shoulder, in contrast to the empathetic chip in Iris’ circuitry.
Harvey Guillen and Lukas Gage make a memorable and surprising couple, Rupert Friend an oily Russian oligarch, and in a scene stealing turn, Marc Menchaca makes his mark as the marvellously, nay, magnificently, mustachioed sheriff, in a superb piece of Americana cinema trope.
Pungently powerful, you can taste the irony as the picture punches and lands on target. Superior in many ways to the over inflated Award season fare on offer at the moment, COMPANION is worth keeping company with.
