"Companion" is Programmed to Resist the Patriarchy

Companion follows Iris, a robot who is entirely unaware of her inhumanity. Her boyfriend, Josh, views her as a device synced to his phone that is designed to serve him physically and support him emotionally. When Iris realizes that she is a robotic companion, not a human girlfriend, all hell breaks loose.

The flim debuted in January of this year, marketed as a horror/sci-fi movie. This genre categorization makes sense, considering the plot of a robot taking vengeance on her human owner. But most reviews of the film focus on the intersection of technology and humanity, rather than the toxic romantic dynamic between Iris and Josh. New York Times and Hilltop both discuss the film’s technophobia. Vulture mentions that Josh “ably embodies a type of character who’s shaping up to be a recurring villain in 2025 — the savage softboy, who acts sensitive, and says all the right things, and turns out to be harboring all sorts of resentments ready to bubble over into acts of brutality.” But the piece doesn’t dig into why this might be a trending trope.

The Vulture article goes on to say that the film is “only glancingly political,” and we shouldn’t mourn its lack of depth because “all the movie really wants to do is entertain.”  I, for one, was not (only) entertained by this film. Companion digs into the systemic norms of our culture that result in so many women in heterosexual relationships feeling unseen, unheard, ignored, and unappreciated. 

Mona Chollet’s nonfiction work Reinventing Love: How the Patriarchy Sabotages Heterosexual Relations can help us unpack how this film serves as social commentary. Iris’s status as a robot shines light on the inequity of her dynamic with Josh, but many fully-human women have had similar experiences of being silenced and subdued. At least, while watching this film I repeatedly thought “yep, been there, felt like that.”

One of Iris’s key characteristics as a companion robot is her subservience. She follows commands given to her by the device-owner, like a dutiful woman serving the needs of her partner. The expectation that a woman will adhere to the needs of a man is a lingering, insidious symptom of patriarchal systems. Chollet writes, “our culture has so well normalized making women inferior that many men cannot take on a companion who does not diminish or censor herself in some way.” In the world of Companion, we’re told Iris is cripplingly subservient because of her programming. But an intelligent viewer knows this deferential behavior stems from societal constructs that apply to real, human women. 

The first decision Iris makes upon realizing she’s a robot is to increase her intelligence. On the surface this seems like a logical step in defeating the villain by outsmarting him. But the larger implication is that Josh chose to set Iris’s intelligence below average. Chollet tells us that “according to an American study in 2006, men are generally reluctant to go out with women who are more intelligent or more ambitious than they are.” Because Iris is a robot, Josh is able to determine her intelligence level to suit his need for superiority. But the reality of a man desiring a less intelligent woman is not science-fiction. 

The metaphor of a girlfriend rendered subhuman by patriarchal constructs is driven home by Iris’s clothing. She is overtly styled to resemble a 1950s housewife on holiday. Medium says this choice in aesthetic makes Iris “feel like a real-life Barbie doll, which fits so well with her character’s role as a “companion.”” As the film progresses, Iris becomes bloody, barefoot, dirty, and increasingly disheveled. She grows closer to a naturalistic human state in appearance as she gains autonomy.

But what does it say about male desire for companionship, that Josh’s ideal woman has lower intelligence and will dote on his every need? That he uses her for sex and then tells her to “go to sleep,” shutting her down until he wants to engage with her again? Sure, Iris is just a robot who participates in this dynamic because she was programmed to accept it. But patriarchal systems exist to make all women amenable to this same dynamic. 

Iris’s robotic nature is symbolic. She is portrayed as the ideal woman created by the male gaze, the physical manifestation of Josh’s desires. But only a robot is able to achieve that ideal state of muted obedience. In other words, female subservience is not natural. Iris is a robot because the human element of womanhood must be neutralized for these heterosexual dynamics to work. Once humanity is added back into the equation - one Iris takes back agency – the system falls apart. The robot wakes up. The companion begins to fight back.  

Companion invites us to further interrogate heterosexual romantic dynamics, with a thin layer of sci-fi to make the metaphor easier to swallow. Iris was never just a robot, she was always a person breaking free from the constraints of patriarchal structures. The current focus on technophobia in film reviews makes it clear that those who benefit from these systems aren’t yet ready to critically interrogate them. And this film wasn’t made for them.