"Companion", and how to sell nothing, when in fact there is substance
General Reviews
How weird is to watch multiple trailers for a movie and do not understand what it is about, just to be in the cinema and, at the end of the first act you found a twist, like a freezing water bucket that makes everything you saw click. Spoilers on this twist ahead.
Josh (Jack Quaid) and his friend Kat (Megan Suri) organize a party in a house ridiculously isolated, where they are plotting to kill Kat's sh*tty boyfriend (Rupert Friend). But, we do not learn this until Iris (Sophie Thatcher) in self defense kills him, revealing she is a robot program to love Josh inconditionally.
This revelation and premise of the movie is full of potential. First, it caught me off-guard, which rarely happens nowadays and feels amazing. Also, the movie start with Josh treating Iris kind of bad, humiliating her and simply being a piece of sh*t boyfriend, and the openning voice in off make you believe this story will be about this girl learning to value herself and face her boyfriend. And yes, but the film does it through a more exagerated and high-concept way: by being a robot programed to be obssesive and "madly in love" regardless of how she is treated. It is a conflict between nature (program) and love (selflove) achieved through sci-fi that manages to create an exagerated (and not unempathic as it would be with a real human that just does not love herself, having you screaming at the screen "friend, just realize and value yourself") vision of some sort of dependence many people battle with.
That is also other strong point of the film, the protagonist and focus is through the eyes of this robot that just realized she is a robot. In addition to being some kind of Blade Runner-ish theme, it is an actual topic explored in some ways more creative and impactful than others. Like the way she change her voice or her hand being completely burn, even her intelligence level being able to change from scene to scene, are little details that, in addition to making a more complete universe, play an important part in the plot. And, when others flims sre completely incapable of creating iconic and emotional characters, this one manages to make you care, support and even see the robot as a more human character than the rest organic people.
Even with this praise, the movie feels just like another Blumhouse/Universal release. It completely lacks of visual personality, the locations are rented AirBnBs and the lightihg is really flat and lacking any kind of stylization. The production design only experiments with a different aesthetic in one scene: a good memory where Iris dresses as if she was a 1950s woman that goes well with the themes of simpler times. The montage works well to narrate, but it is too much on your face and use the same scenes time and time again until it becames unbearable. The direction works and suffies, the title card shot and the burning hand are really attractive and well achieved, but no other shot is worth remembering and the actors interpretations are blandly exagerated and forgetful.
The best way I can describe this is like a Blumhouse high-concept horror flick, cinematographically bland, with a half-exploited potential, but so generic and unrisk-taking that at least is competent and entertaining. It is a no hard thinking nor big attention needed movie that is perfect to go with your "Companion".
You can check my review of A Complete Unknown in my personal Blog Once Upon a Time in the Movies: https://onceuponatimethemovies.blogspot.com/
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