COMPANION

The film opens in a supermarket. A young woman named Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is walking around when she meets a guy named Josh (Jack Quaid). He tries to make a good first impression, only to accidentally cause a pile of oranges to collapse, but Iris finds it funny. Her narration states that there were two moments when she felt happiest – the first was when she met Josh, and the second was the day she killed him.

Iris and Josh become a couple and are traveling to a lake house to meet their friends – Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillen), his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage), and Kat’s boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend). Iris is a bit nervous about being around them, since Kat is a bit rude with her. The friends hang out and dance later on.

The next day, Iris is by the lake and runs into Sergey. He makes an attempt to come on to her, but she objects. When he doesn’t stop, she shoves him backwards, where he hits his head on a rock. Sergey gets up and tries to strangle Iris, but she takes out a knife that was in her pocket and stabs Sergey in the neck. She returns to the house covered in blood and freaking everyone out. While Iris frantically tries to explain herself, Josh just tells her “Iris, go to sleep”, and she shuts down, her eyes going white.

Josh turns Iris back on after tying her up with the others. He reveals to her that she is a companion robot designed for emotional support, and also for sex. He shows her how he controls her through his phone, as well as making her realize that their first time meeting was just a fabricated “meet cute” memory that all the companion bots have when they form a “love link” with their owners. Josh and Kat discuss shutting Iris down for good. Realizing she is in trouble, Iris breaks herself free and punches Josh in the throat so she can make her escape, along with the pad that controls her.

Iris retreats into the nearby woods, where she ups her intelligence from 40% to 100%. She tries to figure out a way to escape without drawing any negative attention to herself. Meanwhile, Josh and Kat reveal to Eli and Patrick that Josh jailbroke Iris to deliberately kill Sergey since he supposedly had ties to the Russian mafia. Their plan was to get rid of him and take his $12 million fortune, splitting it three ways. When Eli objects and says it should be split four ways, it is revealed that Patrick is also his companion bot. Fearing that Iris could be a lethal threat, Eli grabs a gun from the safe and goes after her with Patrick.

Iris continues to hide until she overhears Eli and Patrick. The two have a moment, where Patrick acknowledges he is a bot, but he genuinely is in love with Eli. He remembers their “meet cute”, where they appeared to meet at a Halloween party. Eli also reciprocates his love toward Patrick, not caring that he is in love with a robot. They then overhear Iris nearby, and Eli attempts to approach her with the gun. He chases after her, and they end up in a struggle for the gun, but Eli gets shot through the chest and dies. Patrick is left mourning him.

Iris runs back to the house and gets into Josh’s self-driving car. He attempts to go after her but gets his fingers caught in the door. She manages to change her voice to match his so that the car can start, and she runs over Josh’s foot. Josh runs into the woods to find Patrick over Eli’s body, and Eli’s phone to control Patrick has been smashed. Josh reboots Patrick and establishes a love link with him, then ups Patrick’s aggression level to 100 to go after Iris.

Josh reports his car stolen, so Iris is left stranded on the road and is locked in as the car shuts off. She is spotted by Deputy Hendrix (Marc Menchaca) after she breaks the window off. When she tries to explain herself, her voice setting suddenly has her speaking German. Patrick then approaches them and smashes Hendrix’s face in until he’s dead, and then grabs Iris’s control pad to shut her down.

Patrick returns to the house dressed in Hendrix’s uniform before carrying Iris back into the house. Kat decides to just take her half of the money and bail after admitting to Josh that Sergey was never in the mob, he was just a terrible boyfriend who made his millions in sod farming. Josh tries to stop her, but she refuses to listen to him. He orders Patrick to stop her, but Patrick stabs Kat in the back. Realizing she is going to bleed out, Kat just tells Josh to stop talking and then goes to sit next to Iris to die.

Josh and Patrick move the bodies into the same pile in the woods. He then sets up a “dinner date” with Iris, where he turns her intelligence down to zero and puts her hand over a candle to burn the plastic skin off. He then calls the company that manufactured the bots to report Iris as defective and murderous. Josh then puts a gun in her hand and forces her to shoot herself in the head, seemingly shutting her down for good.

Two employees, Sid (Matt McCarthy) and Teddy (Jaboukie Young-White), arrive to take Iris back to the factory. Sid mentions that they can play back footage of what Iris saw, since all her memories are stored in her midsection as opposed to her head, and it is enough to reboot her. Fearing he will be exposed, Josh sends Patrick to follow the van. Patrick shoots Sid dead and goes after Teddy. Iris manages to reboot and comes out in time to stop Patrick from strangling Teddy. She makes Patrick remember that he was in love with Eli, not Josh. Patrick’s memories of Eli come back, and, feeling remorse for what he has become, he grabs a cattle prod and puts it in his mouth to kill himself. Teddy thanks Iris for saving him, and she asks him for help with something.

Iris returns to confront Josh, revealing that Teddy gave her full autonomy in gratitude for saving his life. Josh attacks Iris and tries to shoot her himself, but he lets her say some last words. She tells him, “Go to sleep, Josh” and then sticks an electric corkscrew in his head, which drills into his brain and kills him.

Iris later removes the melted skin off her arm, exposing her mechanical hand. She then takes Sergey’s money and leaves the house in a car. On the road, she sees another companion bot that looks like her. Iris smiles and waves with her metal hand, confusing the other bot.