OUT NOW: Companion (Drew Hancock, 2025)

When Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) join their friends for a weekend getaway in the woods, the young couple find themselves thrown into a situation that throws the future of their relationship into question:

Can our lovebirds save their love?

Maybe I have seen too many movies like this. 

Maybe I am just getting old.

Companion is a fun movie.

It takes a set-up that could be the starting point for a film noir or a thriller:

Our protagonist learns their lover has betrayed them as part of a scheme to make money.

In this case (spoilers) the patsy is a robot.

 

And unlike noir, the homme fatal is an idiot who manages to make the situation worse.

Despite some pitch-black laughs, this is a straight ahead thriller.

Sophie Thatcher is effective in the lead role, and the rest of the cast are having a good time puncturing their archetypes (Megan Suri is hilarious). 

While Jack Quaid played a similar role in Scream, he has more space here as the villain. Initially it appears his amiable presentation appears to be a schtick, a facade he uses to get what he wants.

As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that he is so good at appearing to be a ‘nice guy’ because he believes he is one.

There is some interesting thematic meat here. The film is trying to be a metaphor for an abusive relationship, and what makes this aspect effective is both Quaid’s casting, and the way he plays the character as a self-pitying narcissist - he is enough of an asshole to use his robot companion as a murder weapon, but he is so self-involved that he feels the need to confess all and try to rehabilitate how she perceives him.

I am not that familiar with Quaid’s work, but on the basis of this performance, I could not help but think of how effective his father Dennis is at puncturing archetypes of masculinity (Far From Heaven is the easy pull, but even in a straightforward allegory like Enemy Mine, he is sending up the idea of the ‘ugly American’).

Here Quaid is playing a shade of toxic masculinity that is distinct from the kind Dennis plays.

Jack Quaid cannot project that kind of brash machismo. Instead he is playing up vulnerability and assumed empathy, a perception of non-threat.

Thankfully, this movie is not some weighty treatise. It is a fun little thriller, nothing more and nothing less.

I wish it found a few more ways to put our heroine in jeopardy. And while there are some clever uses of the machine’s functionality, the film feels like it could be a little smarter.

That last word kind of sums up the movie: it is a solid genre picture that gets the job done, but it does feel like it leaves meat on the table.

It is not nearly as funny or weird as the premise makes it out to be.

But still, on its own terms, Companion is a good time.

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OUT NOW: Harbin (Woo Min-ho, 2024)

The story of resistance fighter Ahn Jung-geun (Hyun Bin), and his plan to assassinate Resident-General Itō Hirobumi (Lily Franky), the Japanese governor of occupied Korea. 

Set against the Korean resistance to Japanese occupation, Harbin was mMade before the recent impeachment, but feels charged with a nationalistic pride in the indefatigability of the Korean people against oppression.

While elements of the film play with genre, particularly the thriller, its focus is not what you would expect.

The film’s most unique feature is that it is centred around a central character who is faulted for his empathy.

That embrace of empathy and belief in people is the film’s guiding star.

There are only a few action sequences, but the film is less concerned with using these scenes to create a sense of excitement.  

The opening sequence foregrounds the inhumanity and horror of combat. The battle turns into bodies writhing about in mud, their uniforms completely obscured, rendering them indistinguishable from each other. There is no sense of glory here.

That scene is the only time our protagonists are shown in victory. The later setpieces (the fight on the train, the ambush at the safehouse) are essentially escapes from danger. 

Our hero’s greatest strength - his belief in people - is framed as a weakness. In a world where anyone can turn out to be a traitor he is a liability.

That theme of radical empathy is an interesting idea for what is basically a war movie, but it is somewhat less cathartic in execution. 

The film makes a lot of use of flashbacks in its third act, to reveal character motivation, and build a sense of empathy and moral ambiguity, but their inclusion does come off a little clunky, if not a little deflating in terms of maintaining tension.

An enjoyable film, although it feels like its themes are teasing a more interesting one.

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