A note in advance: The poster and the trailer already reveal what the protagonist Iris is all about – and even in a review you can hardly avoid at least revealing the premise. In the film itself, however, it takes 15 to 20 minutes until the first central twist is revealed. So if you're in the mood for a really nasty and extremely entertaining horror thriller, it's best to go to the cinema as ignorant as possible. With the undeniable crowd pleaser qualities of “Companion – The Perfect Accompaniment” you certainly won’t regret it.

A perfect couple!?
But now to the actual discussion: The fun is already lurking around the corner, but things are starting to get pretty serious. Iris (Sophie Thatcher), whose outfit is somewhat reminiscent of Geena Davis's pin-up look in “Thelma & Louise”, is dragged along by her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quiad) for a weekend together. The destination is the villa of the current Russian millionaire Sergey (Rupert Friend). Sugar daddy by Josh's best friend Kat (Megan Suri). Also on site is Eli (Harvey Guillén), who has a few pounds too much on his own, but whose lover Patrick (Lukas Cage) looks like an Adonis carved out of marble. But something isn't right here. A lot of things seem invasive without being able to put my finger on it – and Iris is actually approached at the nearby lake by Sergey, who doesn't seem to have a bad conscience at all about forcing himself on her sexually.
“Companion – The perfect accompaniment” begins like a hyperstylized #MeToo (horror) drama – and this impression is only half deceptive: When Josh orders his girlfriend, who is at least three leagues above him in terms of attractiveness, to “sleep” in a particularly heated moment, her eyes widen suddenly white and she hangs her head unconscious. But the unexpected reaction isn't due to any form of hypnosis; instead, Iris turns out to be a surprisingly sophisticated sex robot. Or to put it more euphemistically: “an emotional support pod that fucks“. The usual Asimov rules apply: Iris must follow every order, she must always tell the truth and she must not harm people or other pods.
#MeToo meets artificial intelligence
But there is another circumstance that makes this human-machine interaction seem particularly shabby: In contrast to the love robot Gigolo Joe, embodied by Jude Law in Steven Spielberg's masterpiece “AI – Artificial Intelligence”, the sex robots in “Companion – Die perfect accompaniment” namely that not only they, but also their love are absolutely real. With the help of false memories, the “machines” are led to believe that they have free will that in reality does not exist. If you think about it more closely, some scenes can actually make you feel sick. For example, when the loser Josh receives his newly leased sex doll in a flashback (there isn't enough money to buy it): The support pods unconditionally love everyone they first see after switching on, almost as if they were newly hatched ducklings.
The plot of “Companion” definitely has the makings of a particularly dark episode of “The Twilight Zone” or “Black Mirror”. But debut director Drew Hancock, who is also responsible for the script, allows all the thematic abysses to resonate in the further course – and instead gives us a consistently high-speed heist thriller that increasingly sinks into bloody chaos with tough, cathartic scenes (“Rape” & -)Revenge inserts (it's super easy to hate Josh with all your heart). One narrative twist follows another and the way in which the robot rules that Iris herself has to adhere to on her quest for revenge are incorporated into the script is always as clever as it is darkly humorous.

Someone should claim again that robots can't feel pain!
Like his father Dennis Quaid in the body horror masterpiece “The Substance,” which was recently nominated for Best Picture, Jack Quaid (“The Boys”) also makes a terrific sleazeball that makes you want to punch yourself in the face practically from the first moment would. This is precisely what ensures that the second half in particular is not only a lot of fun, but also incredibly satisfying. But the central performance of the film is of course still provided by Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”):
Just a few weeks after she shone as a Mormon missionary in the horror shocker “Heretic,” she is also wowing in “Companion”! If you initially believe that Iris is human, she sprinkles in enough little disturbing mannerisms to throw you off track again and again. And later, despite her “sex robot”, she shows so much humanity with a single tear rolling down her cheek that everyone keeps their fingers crossed for her (and wishes almost everyone else a particularly cruel death, which fortunately is the same in some cases fulfillment is possible).
Conclusion: Drew Hancock consciously doesn't delve too deeply into the painful (#MeToo) abysses that are repeatedly hinted at around the edges. Instead, he relies on extremely cynical humor and surprising twists. The result is a heist and revenge genre piece that is as clever as it is extremely nasty, which in retrospect you might wish were EVEN darker and bolder at times, but which above all puts you in a really good mood while you're watching it.
PS: At one point, Iris comes up with something particularly clever in order to override her own non-lying programming when she meets the local sheriff – and in the original English version, this is simply hilarious, especially for German-speaking viewers! So if you somehow have the chance of an original version (with subtitles), this choice is doubly worthwhile in the case of “Companion – The Perfect Accompaniment”.