The movie opens to a beaten up car in the forest with a hooded figure sitting inside of it. We flash to someone in a clearing taking photos with their phone of something on the ground. Quickly it is revealed that the dead body of a woman is on the ground with the letter ‘K’ carved into her cheek. Following this there is a montage of what looks like a forum with videos and postings about killing women that are considered to be Kristies which we learn from a voiceover. First and foremost we need to address what a “Kristy” is and why it pisses this group so much. A Kristy is a well liked, privileged, and pretty girl who believes in God and this group believes that by killing Kristy that you are killing God.

The first portion of the movie after we establish that there is a murderous group and who they intend to murder is establishing who our main character, Justine, is and what makes her fit the criteria for being Kristy. Justine has a boyfriend, Aaron, who loves her, has friends, is athletic, and studious. She also seems to know just about every worker she encounters on campus. Not only that but she works part time for work study because she is on an academic scholarship and seems close with her family based on a phone conversation we see between her and her mom about her not coming home for Thanksgiving. It’s established that she’ll be staying on campus due to the outrageous cost of airfare. She won’t be alone though because her roommate, Nicole, is also staying behind. 

There’s a sweet scene of her saying goodbye to her boyfriend where he makes some last ditch attempts to convince her to come home with him over the break. After repeatedly declining he makes a recording of him telling her he loves her and he’s off. Flash forward to Nicole bailing because her family is going to Aspen and she doesn’t want to miss out on it. Nicole also tries to get Justine to come with her for the break but again Justine declines. With Nicole gone she’s on her own with the nice dorm security guard for the break.

After spending the day in a well filmed montage swimming, dancing, and making the best of her time alone on campus she decides to take her friend's car and go to the store for some snacks. She is kind enough to ask the security guard if he wants anything and this alone makes me like her and also know that the security guard will unfortunately be killed before the film is over. At the store she sees a hooded girl acting really strange who she has an odd interaction with. 

It’s really odd to think but our girl Alice from the Twilight movie series is this hooded girl with piercings, crusty lips, washed out skin, dark sunglasses, greasy hair, and a hood. This strange woman tells Justine she likes her car and then attempts to touch her hair while saying that she’s pretty. Obviously, as most of us would, Justine backs up and swerves that girl hard. This offends the weirdo and Justine is off to checkout. The girl comes and wants to buy the glasses and gets into a tiff with the cashier about a discount. Justine, uncomfortable like any of us would be, offers to pay to end this interaction which further offends the woman who slams a twenty down on the counter and leaves.

Justine exits the mini mart and is faced head on with the headlights of the rundown car from the beginning of the movie, yikes. The car peels out of there and Justine gets in her friend’s car to leave. She ends up in a road incident with said broken down car but manages to make it back to her campus and then dorm. She lets the security guard know this and he says he’ll check it out. It is important to note that this campus is fairly secure for a college campus and you must have a reason for being on said campus if you want to make it past the gate. My own college campus is in a city and this notion is so bizarre to me but it is a major plot device.

Being that the campus is seemingly in the middle of nowhere the electricity, that is being upgraded over break, starts to go on the fritz along with the WiFi. This freaks Justine out when the movie she’s streaming cuts to a failed internet screen. For some reason Justine’s reaction is to bang on the window during the storm to try to get the attention of the security guard making the rounds outside. For what reason I have no clue. Behind her the door opens and the hooded woman is there in her dorm room. 

They exchange some words and Justine manages to get out and get downstairs hiding from the group behind the security desk after finding none of the phones work. She hears the security guard by the door trying to get in and she tries to warn him about the killers only for him to be killed. The group convenes and lets Justine know that the hunt for her has begun. The next big chunk of the movie is Justine either hiding from them, or running away from them. Notable moments include Justine finding the dead front gate security guard, getting to the groundskeeper house, getting him and his dog killed, and even jumping off of the library roof. 

Regarding Justine as a character I think she’s extremely smart and resourceful but to further the plot and keep the final battle from happening too quickly they have her character do some dumb things. This woman never locks a door behind her, sits down rather than tries to find any weapons in the first half, lets the dog run right out the door, and when she makes it to the road after jumping off the roof she goes back onto campus to try and save her boyfriend rather than get help. She also shouldn’t have survived enough to be able to run around after jumping off of the roof but that’s neither here nor there.

In a rather lackluster scene, the group kills Aaron in front of Justine which is partially his fault for not listening to her and running to her while she screamed at him. This causes Justine to strangely say ‘no’ to them a couple times and then run to Aaron’s car which he’s left running. She’s not quick enough however and one of the group members jumps on the hood of the car. He tries smashing into the windshield to stop her but she rams him into a wall, killing him. This clearly intensifies things and Justine manages to get away to the athletic center. She hides and empties Aaron’s backpack she’s taken from his crashed vehicle and finds the recorder. 

In a clever move she uses the pool as a hiding place, holding her breath underwater while one of the group members searches this area. When he has almost given up he discovers the contents of the backpack and knows she’s near so begins searching again. Justine has been army crawling through the bleachers and has placed a hose into the water. This draws the killer’s attention and she then bum rushes him into the pool. They face off underwater and she ends up cracking his neck with his bat.

Cassandra Naud plays CW who is a chameleon sliding in and out of characters to suit her needs at any given moment. She can quickly turn on a child-like naivety to appeal to a woman more comfortable in a big sister role and then right back into a natural quiet confidence that commands respect when dealing with those that are looking to her for direction. She has a keen attention to detail that slowly unravels as the movie goes on and she finds herself in increasingly close calls with exposure. 

At first the POV of the movie is through Madison's eyes, not being privy to CW's intentions or the danger she poses, and life happening to her rather than her happening to those around her. Madison looks to CW as a doorway to a fresh perspective and a new start, someone who can teach her about a new way of life. Heartbroken from her recent breakup, Madison's guard is down when she meets the calm, cool, collected CW at a bar. 

After spending time together for a few days CW is there when Madison's room is broken into and her passport stolen. CW offers Madison to stay with her while they work out getting her another passport, approximately two weeks. Overwhelmed by the circumstances, Madison doesn't see the coincidence in timing of the events or any holes in CW's background or reasoning for being in Thailand.

With Madison's affairs squared away with the USA consulate CW suggests they visit an island in the middle of the ocean to escape and disconnect. CW tells Madison she found this island by chance and spends a lot of time in the ocean, other than that we don't learn much about CW's past. We don't find out what happens for sure on the island aside from CW returning to the main island and Madison not.

POV of CW, the plot now follows her as she assumes Madison's identity. Using a blonde wig, camera, and AI-like editing software she's able to transpose Madison's image onto new content. With this new content showing Madison enjoying her disconnection from social media in Thailand she can stave off suspicion while using Madison's credit cards to extend the stay at the luxurious beach house. 

Just as soon as Madison's identity has been assumed CW is on the hunt again, showing that no encounters or victims have been by chance. CW has a bulletin board with photos that Madison's is added to, alluding to there being at least four other victims, all looking like Madison-bubbly, long-haired blonde women on the beach. The victim this time however is more attune to the red flags CW lets slip.

Things aren't going as smoothly as they had with Madison, and CW seems challenged but determined with her new victim, Jessica played by Sara Canning, who is more wary of a perfect stranger. Jessica questions CW and can piece together inconsistencies or oddities when talking to her but ultimately falls for adoration of her social media presence and lets CW closer. As suspected Jessica finds her hotel room having been broken into and needing a place to stay, to which CW gladly offers.

Unfortunately for CW Madison's boyfriend, Ryan, didn't take her texts and social media posts as good enough reason to stay away and has broken into the house, using Madison's credit card purchase history to find where she was and planning a surprise dinner to get her back. Upon running into one another in the house Madison and Ryan are both wary, Ryan not believing that Madison had trusted a total stranger enough to stay in a house she's renting and speak on her behalf.

Ryan and Jessica feed off one another's suspicions and grow increasingly weary of CW and the stories she's told them so far. At one point while the three are on a hike Jessica asks CW questions suspecting that CW has told both Ryan and Jessica different stories, which she has. CW trips up slightly on the questions and there is a tension filled back and forth between them. It's clear at this point that Jessica is at the very least onto CW and at the worst going to expose her.

At this point in the movie we have switched POV's once and are headed for yet two more. The last two switches between characters we experienced got increasingly unexpected and at the point where CW and Ryan are left in the beach villa, I figured the movie had reached a natural end only to find out we'd only had a turning point. I won't say much more about the plot to keep some of the best twists a mystery.

There are parallels throughout between expectations for a robot and expectations for a girlfriend, oftentimes the concepts being interchangeable when discussed amongst the characters. Even the lead up to the plot introducing Iris as a robot seems wildly normal as far as what we expect to see in romantic comedies. Despite us following Iris' POV we don’t question off-rip why we only see Iris in any context outside of Josh and her relationship with Josh, she doesn’t have a world of her own. Her world revolves around him as a companion robot but also like a codependent girlfriend.

The rest of this review includes spoilers for the movie Companion (2025) throughout. If you have not seen the movie and want to watch it spoiler-free I highly recommend going to watch it before reading the remainder of this post. The well placed yet subtle surprises in the plot build upon one another in a way best enjoyed first via a watch of the movie. It’s available now to stream on Max if you have a subscription or for rent on the usual apps like Apple TV+, YouTube, and Amazon Prime, priced as a newer rental around $5.99 USD at the time of writing this.

I loved that we opened on a Meet Cute that was so grandiose and perfect that it had to be manufactured in some way, which is confirmed fairly soon after Iris is self aware. Skipping from the Meet Cute to a ride for a weekend away together also made sense and felt like a parallel to a romantic comedy. Often skipping the actual relationship portions of a relationship story in the romance category of media. The monotony is discussed by Iris in her opening narration but we don’t actually see her live that monotony, a first clue that we are missing key context from her POV as the only one available to us at the time.

On the car ride to the lake house Josh “calms” Iris’ nerves by claiming her fears are not rooted in reality—wholly dismissing them and belittling her. He claims for example Kat does actually like her despite her feeling uncomfortable and Kat’s behavior suggesting otherwise. Kat seems wary of Iris and it’s clear to the viewer based on her comments that she takes issue with the idea of AI robots as replacements for women or feminine roles in relationships. In particular Iris is a threat to Kat’s own existence, her telling Iris as much when she explains her dislike of Sergey but wanting to having access to a rich lifestyle via putting up with him. Essentially, if men like Sergey can just buy a robot to be their side piece what will she do?

Patrick and Eli on the other hand appear to have a perfect relationship, almost in comparison to Iris and Josh’s they have a unison and comfortability that the newer couple lacks. Patrick is a part of the group rather than an outsider in comparison to Iris being a newcomer who’s uncomfortable around the group. It reaffirms a potential jealousy that Kat could have towards Iris that she lacks for Patrick, who is a man representing a more feminine role in a relationship. A secondary movie plot is playing out with all of the gender normative stereotypes applied to the characters Kat, Patrick, Eli, and Sergey. There are clues that Josh is the ultimate villain but I had assumed that Iris would be a robot gone rogue rather than multiple relationship nightmares.

After Josh encourages Iris to go out to enjoy the lake without him (which we find out later is planned) she is attacked by Sergey. Sergey quickly attempts to sexually assault her once they are alone, feeling she lacks the ability to say no to him and not seeing her as an autonomous being but a robot. We don’t see the attack initially but rather see Iris come inside covered in Sergey’s blood and holding a knife, stating she didn’t mean to do it. Iris explains she stabbed Sergey in the neck with the knife that she’d discovered in her pocket, via flashback scenes as she tells the group what happened. In a panic Kat runs outside to find Sergey, and Patrick ties Iris to a chair after Josh puts her in sleep mode. Josh implies to Eli that he has no clue why Iris was able to harm Sergey and suggests it could be a glitch.

Josh says they should call the cops and come clean about everything but asks Eli to call them from outside so he can say goodbye to Iris. He wakes her to inform her she’s a robot meant to be a companion and that he has leased her from a company called Empathix. He uses the word “fuckbot” to describe what a companion bot is, his mask gone now that he believes Iris is going down for everything.

Josh shows her he controls her via an app on his phone to prove what he’s saying is true, displaying her language capabilities by the click of a button. He also reveals that everything she believes is a memory is just programming, a backstory that is more of a framework. She counters that their meeting couldn’t have been fake, but he admits he picked from a menu of Meet Cute scenarios when he set her up. This asshole has even been calling her “Beep Boop” which just felt like an LOL in her face prior to her self awareness.

His telling of their real meeting informs that he isn’t as caring and emotionally intelligent as the intro to the movie suggested. The first thing he did when Iris was officially paired with him as her love link was have sex with her. Josh reveals that even Iris feeling pain is part of her programming to make her feel real, including liquid tears made of water that comes from a reservoir inside of her that is topped off when she gets serviced. His demeanor is joyful, enjoying her pain and confusion. She offers that they can make it through the situation and that she can make him happy via cooking, cleaning, and sex but he says that it can’t happen. Iris, confused, asks him why not just as Kat walks in and asks Josh what he’s doing.

Kat asks what Josh is waiting for and to shut her down which leaves Iris shook and he leaves Iris yelling after him to go talk to Kat in a separate room. Iris sees the knife she dropped earlier across the room and begins to make her way over to cut herself free. Kat and Josh are talking in hushed tones, arguing about what the best course of action is but Iris is still able to make out most of the convo as she slowly cuts free in between cutting back to the room.

Big reveal time happening while Iris works on that: Kat and Josh set this weekend up to have Iris kill Sergey to steal his money. Josh clearly believes that he and Kat will be together and that that played a role in their murderous plot.  She tells Josh she took the Xanax that Eli had offered her earlier as an excuse to not be as touchy-excited as he is about Sergey’s death, believing her to be in shock that her boyfriend was just killed.

Iris is able to free herself just as Josh has come back and punches him in the throat and steals the tablet. Kat and Iris cross paths and Iris tells Kat how to take care of Josh post throat punch, even recommending when he’d need to go to the ER. Outside Eli is still on the phone with 9-1-1 and Iris comes out, now untied, and runs into the forest, Eli telling Patrick to wait when Patrick tries to tell him. Cut to Josh coming clean to Eli about the mod, which he shows is on the USB drive he plugged into Iris’ tablet earlier that day. He informs them the mod essentially jail breaks her which allows him to turn up her aggression and self defense abilities. Josh’s concern is that Empathix will find Iris before he can reset her and they will then know that she was tampered with.

Josh admits to Eli that they gave Iris a push to kill Sergey by tampering with her but justifies it by referencing Sergey’s mobster activities in trafficking. Kat’s one contribution to this narrative is that he was a terrible boyfriend as an excuse to plot his murder. Josh is completely unbothered at this point about Sergey’s death, especially after they visit the stash pile of money in a safe behind a painting. Inside the safe is piles of cash and a gun, which she claims is just over 12 million. Josh admits they let Eli and Patrick come along to help bolster their stories and offers to cut him in on the deal, now a 3 way split instead of 2. Eli questions why it would be 3 ways when technically there are 4 of them there—another big reveal: Patrick is also a companion robot.

Not only that but Eli has opted to keep him over upgrading the model many times over. For Josh’s part in the plan he says he planted the knife on Iris, but Kat intervenes and declares the offer of 4 million for Eli to find Iris in the woods. Eli calls dibs on the gun in order to hunt down Iris but Josh assures they only need to get in range so Josh can  put Iris to sleep and wipe her.

Iris opens the tablet but pauses when she sees the cover photo of her and Josh. She then opens the app used to control her and messes with settings like eye color and voice. In advanced settings she turns her intelligence up to 100%, revealing that Josh had her intelligence set to 40% this whole time. The intelligence meter is only able to be dialed up to “Ivy League Graduate” at the 100 or max level with 0 on the other end being completely docile without command. There’s an inherent cap on how much intelligence to give to the submissive portion of the relationship that is a companion robot.

Eli takes a gun from Sergey’s safe and they all go into the forest to look for Iris including Patrick out of sleep mode. While on the hunt the group splits up and Eli questions if Josh and Kat are hooking up because of the pairing off, which Kat says is gross, shocking Josh.

Patrick and Eli stop and Patrick admits he knows he’s a robot but they confess they love each other regardless of that. Iris is hiding nearby and hears this whole conversation but ends up shooting Eli with the gun during a struggle. Iris then makes her way to Josh’s automatic driving car and tries to get it to drive home, being stopped because her voice isn’t recognized. When Josh realizes she’s stuck there he tries to convince Iris to comply with him until he hears her messing with her voice pitch to start the car. He panics and tries smashing the window, his foot being run over as Iris is able to start the car and back out of the spot.

Josh reports the car stolen however which causes it to stop driving and lock her in the car. Josh calls her at this point and tells her he still loves her and offers her a way out via blaming Patrick for everything. Josh tries to convince her that if she comes back he’ll finally respect her and they can live happily ever after but she wisely points out that him programming her to murder is a big reason to not get back together. She begins to break up with him and this causes Josh’s mask to fully slip as well as spring him into action. Kat is distraught about the plan falling apart but Josh is single minded in his plan, resetting Patrick and linking him to himself in order to utilize Patrick to catch Iris.

When Patrick shows back up with Iris in sleep mode in a police car with an officer dead in the trunk, Kat has seen enough. Kat decides she wants to take her half of Sergey’s money and dip out without Josh. At this point she admits to Josh that Sergey wasn’t a mob boss at all and instead made his fortune in the dirt industry. It turns out Sergey was a man respected in the community who’d made his fortune by honest means. She reveals this when he tries to confirm Sergey’s murder was justified due to him being a Russian mobster. She admits Sergey was a shitty man and misogynist but not a criminal. Josh decides to scrap the nice guy bit, as most nice guys eventually do, and claims she is following a pattern of women in his life. Kat tells Josh she’s not a robot that he can control, alluding to Iris and Patrick, and affirms she will be leaving.

Josh freaks out and commands Patrick to stop her to which he interrupts that as by any means and stabs her in the back with a kitchen knife. The stab is revealed to be a death knell and while Kat is dying she walks over and sits next to Iris who is in sleep mode on the couch. Surrounded by windows in this modern mansion she is bleeding out and thus passing out rather rapidly. She looks out the window at a dark cloud rolling in and says, “It’s going to rain,” in a monotone voice not unlike Iris’ earlier when she recites the weather forecast. In her death and in how she was viewed by Josh was equal to that of a robot in his control, something to deliver a wanted response to him without its own autonomy or opinion on the matter. Josh views people but in particular women as robots.

Josh has Patrick clean Iris up, set a dinner with candles and flowers for them, then cook and serve a dinner to him and Iris. He wakes her up when the food is being served and it’s revealed she’s cuffed to the chair still in German mode. Iris tells Josh she did what she did to survive and that she wanted to live but Josh counters and questions if her life is worth more than Sergey, Eli and Kat’s lives. This reveals Kat is dead and Iris confronts him that Kat’s death isn’t her fault and he can’t blame her for it when she wasn’t there. Josh still blames her however, stating that everything on the trip is her fault to which she informs him she knows about the plan to steal Sergey’s money.

Josh snaps at this point and goes on his incel rant that he is a good guy and his problem is that the “game is rigged” against him. After everything Josh believes he’s a decent man, worthy of good in his life because he’s never done anything. He points out his life consists of a small dwelling and a robot for a girlfriend, which is rather harsh to say to said robot. He admits he doesn’t own her but that she is in fact a rental but he also appeals to her that she knows him better than anyone and can confirm he’s a good guy. She begins by agreeing that she knows him, listing his preferred coffee order and how he likes his bed made, which is what a stereotypical man would want his woman to know about him to take care of him.

Iris quickly confronts him with the truth that his penis is below average sized, his rants about what the world owes him are transparent and not as subtle or far and few as he believes them to be. She calls him a “sad, bitter, weak human being,” regardless of how much money he has. Since he has completely lost control of this interaction he turns her intelligence down to 0 and makes her set her arm on fire via a candle on the dinner table. While her arm burns and tears fill her eyes Josh takes a call from the authorities that the robotics company will arrive in 30 minutes to pick Iris up. Eventually Josh calls Patrick to put Iris’ arm out and after that he gives the command for her to put a gun to her head which she has to obey.

Josh tells her to pull the trigger and rather than instantly doing it like she has other commands she hesitates. Josh has to tell her again and she says, “No,” just as she pulls the trigger and shoots herself through the head. We cut to a van of 2 workers from the robotics company showing up to the lake house to collect Iris and get the story from Josh. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for us he didn’t read the user agreement when he signed for Iris which states she records video and audio of everything she sees and hears for fraud purposes. Not only that but this data is stored in hardware located in her abdomen and not at all in her head, where her wireless remote connection is stored.

He’s spun a bunch of lies and has Patrick dressed in the officer’s uniform to vouch on his behalf to the company that Iris is responsible for the deaths on the property and for shooting herself in the head. If they conclude that she malfunctioned to no fault of Josh then he can get out of paying for the robot and being culpable for the crimes committed by her. We know however that Josh has modded Iris and commanded her and Patrick to do a good chunk of the crimes committed that night.

When Josh learns that the company’s legal department will review the footage after simply booting Iris up in their van outside with minimal damage to her, he snaps on his snap. Outside the 2 workers talk and the seemingly more experienced one tells the other that the malfunction is definitely because Josh modded the robot and that he’s essentially screwed.

In the van we get a little more insight into a world with robot companions served via a company like the fictional Empathix; examples given are target practice and chaining them up for states they’ve recovered robots in. As they go to leave, the more experienced assuring the other that he’ll get used to the fucked up things they see at work, it’s revealed Patrick is standing in the middle of the road that leads out of the lake house property. He’s recognized by the driver who notes they stopped making his model a while ago just as he’s shot through the front windshield.

Teddy, the less experienced tech that came to pick up Iris, runs into the forest, evading gunshots from Patrick. He falls onto the pile of bodies from the weekend at the lake house just as Iris finishes rebooting in the van outside. Patrick catches a bewildered Teddy and tries to shoot him in the head only for the gun to be out of bullets. Patrick instead puts him up against a tree but is interrupted by Iris with a cattle prod.

Unfortunately due to being reset Iris can’t physically hurt Patrick, so he takes the prod and goes to use it on her. Patrick is stropped by Iris asking what Josh told him, to which he informs her that Josh told her everyone was trying to break them up. This resonated as a common tactic manipulators use to keep people in relationships and not listen to outside influences that might open their eyes to the reality of the relationship. Iris is able to stop Patrick by reciting the same lines that he had recited to Eli in the forest that she overheard. She reminds him that is who he loves and we see a glitch of his Meet Cute reverting back to its original state with Eli.

Patrick breaks out of his programming and realizes that Josh used him and he loves Eli who died in his arms. He has memories of moments with Eli of their shared love and he says he can feel it in response to a memory then puts the cattle prod in his mouth and essentially commits robot suicide. A thankful Teddy helps Iris mod herself to freedom and she goes off to confront Josh. She now has self control in part because Teddy believes they are more than just robots, he frees her.

During their confrontation Iris thanks him for freeing her by making her shoot herself to which he calls her a “fucking bitch” angrily. He asks why she even came back and she states essentially she came back for closure, my least favorite excuse for toxicity ever. Josh decides to prove to Iris that he’s not nothing to her and approaches until the gun is on his chest.

He reaches for her face and calls her out that she still loves him which distracts her from her memory of their Meet Cute. Even modded and uninhibited Iris can’t kill Josh because she loves him so she gets thrown into a wall. They both realize, to his amusement and her horror, that Josh’s power over her is mental and emotional, not just technological and physical. He wields this power with no regard for her or others.

Now in control of the situation Josh tells Iris he’s a part of her and can control her that way with no phone. Josh continues to throw Iris around and finally pins her down while on top of her, wanting her to say that he is everything. He then smashes her head into the ground repeatedly until she says that he is everything and he tells her it’s nice to hear her say before pointing the gun at her CPU hardware. Josh stops to tell Iris they had good times together and asks if Iris has anything to add, which she says, “Go to sleep, Josh,” and stabs him in the head with the automatic wine opener. The wine opener proceeds to cork his brain through his skull, leaving him hemorrhaging and eventually passing.