Companion

Even for the most unsuspecting audiences – and indeed, many would prefer that you steer clear of its trailer – it will take little time to sense something off in Companion. There’s the arch cheekiness of its opening scenes, the title looming over lush green forestry in the sparkling lipstick pink of a Technicolor musical as sickly saccharine new lovers Iris and Josh (Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid, respectively) gear up for a romantic getaway. As they promptly pull up to the sprawling estate of pornstache-sporting, probably-a-mobster millionaire Sergey (Rupert Friend), the company that greets them is no less off. A second couple played by Harvey Guillen and Lukas Gage is among the houseguests, but as with our two principals, every declaration of ardent romantic devotion is all but visibly draped in quotation marks, the syrupy sweet nothings laced with a bitterly synthetic aftertaste.

Those with an innate distrust of so much tooth-rotting sugar will already find themselves gravitating to Iris, whose discomfort can’t help but ring truer than the practised ease of her company. Thatcher – who with Heretic has already proven a master of characters who nobly struggle to maintain their most polite poker face – is smartly pitched between eagerness to please and what seems like barely concealed bemusement at the whole endeavour. Anyone who’s ever found the company their partner keeps to be beamed in from another world entirely may find something relatable in this, and may sense a wrong turn incoming for this weekend getaway. It’s in discovering just how wrong that much of the fun of writer-director Drew Hancock’s confident debut is located.

Companion wastes little time in getting down to genre business, briskly unfurling new layers of Hancock’s premise with a refreshing minimum of tricks. His film undoubtedly wants to wrong-foot the viewer, but not with the smirk of a flop-sweat showman determined to outwit you so much as the wink of a card player revealing how fairly they’ve played the game in the lead-up to their winning hand. Each new twist in Companion’s tail seems to be there as much for the ticklish amusement of it as for anything else, and there’s something refreshing in this, even honest. You will find (fairly skin-deep) gender commentary and pithy observations of modern relationships in Companion, but it’s mainly here for a good time.

To that end, it helps to have such locked-in leads, with Thatcher a wry, resourceful heroine and Quaid a perfectly unctuous airhead whose conviction regarding his own smarts sets him up for the most satisfying of falls. In concert with Hancock’s brisk, propulsive 97-minute runtime, they ensure that Companion is the kind of romp that’s just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek clever, and that never outstays its welcome.

Ultimately, this enjoyable genre debut is refreshingly unassuming regarding its own twistiness, with director Hancock delivering just enough sting in the froth for a lingering aftertaste.

Thomas Messner

Companion is released nationwide on 31^st January 2025.

Watch the trailer for Companion here: