Companion (2025)

I have to be very careful as I write this because there are some phenomenal twists that I absolutely don’t want to spoil for you.

Frankly, if you have any interest in seeing this movie, I recommend you stop reading this review now.

It’s really rare that I watch a movie that makes me want to keep watching it versus pausing it and turn my focus to a videogame when I’m solo-viewing.
But “Companion” (2025) absorbed my entire attention one evening for a full 90-minute stretch, even though I had the chance to play my favorite videogame.

Isis (Sophie Thatcher) was a loving, doting girlfriend to Josh (Jack Quaid), and they decided to spend a long holiday weekend with two other couples: Kat (Megan Suri) and her husband Sergey (Ruper Friend) as well as Eli (Harvey Guillen) and his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage). Reading the room, it was clear that Josh, Kat, and Eli were the original friend group, with Iris, Patrick, and Sergey being absorbed in as the relationships developed.
Sergey was obviously the odd-one-out, with a thick Russian accent, a gorgeous mansion on a private lake, and an absolutely disgusting amount of wealth to flaunt, while the other four appeared to be relatively average; Kat clearly came from the same background but freely admitted Iris that she married Sergey for his money.
Unfortunately for Sergey, the others were parasites, hanging around him for his money. When a very poorly planned murder plot went wrong, the remaining five were left scrambling to figure out who to pin it on so the other four could escape with their cut.

And… that’s as much as I can share of the plot without fear of ruining it.

Narratively, the director and writers and everyone else behind the scenes did such a stellar job of building the world of the near-future, utilizing flashbacks, and including musical cues to really amp up the feelings of the scenes.

The movie itself isn’t groundbreaking – there’s nothing here that you haven’t already seen if you’ve watched “Love, Death, Robots” (2019+) or “Black Mirror” (2011+) on Netflix, or read any amount of science-fiction over the last two decades.

The success, however, is just how smoothly the story was told, the pace of the reveals, and the cascade failure from ‘poorly planned fuckup’ to ‘there’s no way you can fix this.’

On top of that: the writers wasted zero time trying to describe the world you were viewing. No one spent screen minutes trying to explain why ALL of the vehicles were self-driving, or how the tech involved in the botched murder had been developed, or how anyone besides Sergey could afford any of it. The onus was on you, the audience, to keep up.

Also impressive was that this movie only had 11 actors; 14 if you include three extras who didn’t have speaking lines.

The soundtrack for this movie was all classic rock and other adult contemporary that you’ll recognize – nothing stellar or novel, but all picked with taste to benefit any given scene.

The special-effects were all done practically; everything was something physical the audience could see the actors interacting with, even the things that probably would have benefited from some CGI.

Furthermore, since this movie was set in the very-near-future, even the vehicles we saw were recognizable: Josh’s car was a Hyundai Ioniq 5, a cop car was a Tesla model S, and the delivery truck was a Ford F250 delivery truck with an electric whine instead of an engine rumble. The cellphones we saw were all modern flip phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z and the OnePlus Open. Wisely, the branding for all of the above was either removed or only minimally displayed in such a way that made it very clear that the items were simply physical props, not product placement.

There’s a crop of millennial (gen-z?) actors that I adore, which includes Thatcher, Quaid, Guillen, and Gage. Every time I see them on-screen; I know that when I see them on screen, whatever media I’m about to consume is going to be phenomenal. Those four (and a few others from other franchises) make me tentatively excited that the future of Hollywood is in good hands.

Please please please go watch this movie.
I promise you it will be worth every minute of your time.

While nothing about the production quality or narrative style or plot line was revolutionary in any direction, the way it all came together earns this movie a 5-Claw rating.
Nothing about it was IMAX worthy, but it absolutely ranks up there with the same must-see need as others with this rating.