Companion (2025) Review: A Great Sci-Fi Premise That Doesn't Trust Itself

Sophie Thatcher in Companion

Companion just landed on Netflix, and I'm almost glad I missed it in theaters. Not because it's bad exactly, but because a film this tonally confused is easier to sit with on a couch than in a dark room full of strangers deciding, along with the movie, whether to laugh.

The premise has real teeth. Sophie Thatcher plays a robot companion who starts to sense that her autonomy, the thing everyone around her keeps deciding for her, might actually be hers to take back. It's a good hook, and Thatcher sells it. She's the only person in the movie who seems to understand what film she's in. Jack Quaid is fine in the same way a lot of things are fine: present, competent, not the problem.

The problem is that nobody else committed to a lane. Companion can't decide if it's horror, comedy, or straight sci-fi, and instead of picking one and letting the others bleed in, it just keeps switching costumes mid-scene. The clearest example: a character raises a gun on the robot lead, and in a moment that should carry real weight, he stops to complain that it's too loud. Cue a couple of dance sequences dropped in like tension valves. It's the kind of choice that reads like a filmmaker who's afraid the audience will check out if things stay heavy too long, so they cut the tension before it can actually land. The result isn't relief. It's whiplash.

That instinct isn't unique to this movie. There's a real pattern right now of Hollywood films built around a woman clawing back autonomy from the people who built or shaped her, and Companion fits neatly into it. What's strange is who's telling these stories. Almost all of them are directed by men. The one clear exception, and not coincidentally the one that commits fully to its tone instead of hedging every scene, is The Substance [AFFILIATE: The Substance Blu-ray — natural comparison point for readers who want the film that actually commits to its premise]. That contrast is doing a lot of the work here. The Substance trusts its own ugliness. Companion keeps flinching from its own premise.

Great concept. Poorly executed follow-through, mostly because the movie doesn't trust its audience to sit with discomfort for more than a scene at a time.

Verdict: 5/10