Wow, Companion is much better than I expected! Good film. A dark comedy take on what the world would look like if tech like in Ex Machina were to be commercialized.

Best line:

“I am not robo-shaming you!”

Spoilers below.

Such a clever, clever film. There’s a cute part in the beginning. If you go in cold you don’t know the protag, Iris, is a machine. Of course, she does not know either. When the two main characters are exiting their self-driving car, she says “thank you” to the car and won’t let them get out of the vehicle until her human partner does the same thing. This implies that she somehow intuits that she shares more with the car than she consciously knows. Great little detail.

Second favorite line that one of the robots says of his implanted, artificial memories in a more serious moment: “I mean, it may have never happened but my memory of it’s real.”

The movie is actually a better and more incisive critique of “nice guys” and the incel phenomenon than any feminist has managed to come up with. Sophie Thatcher as Iris is perfect, too. Without her, the film would’ve been not nearly as good. The scene where she realizes she’s artificial is particularly affecting.

Recommended.