The film starts with a young woman in a grocery story narrating how life can be like having a dark cloud overhead. Then, something happens, and life changes.
For her, that change is meeting a young man, Josh, and how that changed her life. And how her life changed again when she kills Josh.
To find how that happens, we have to keep watching. It’s a narrative hook to hold the attention of the viewer. If we’d just started with the meet cute, the movie would have conveyed it’s a romantic comedy, not romantic horror. (Although in real life it can also be difficult to tell apart).
Next scene, Josh and Iris arrive at a large, isolated home. Iris is convinced that Josh’s friends won’t like her.
Then, someone named Kat has an odd reaction to Iris. Why, comes out later, but it’s framed as a question. The audience is being asked to remember the moment.
Josh and Iris then greet a chubby guy and his cute boyfriend.
The Russian homeowner, Sergey, refers to Iris as a ‘beautiful creation.’ This is subtext. What it means is revealed later. Dialogue that lacks subtext can be dramatically flat, mundane. True to life, but not true in terms of a deeper meaning.
The friends are now gathered. Patrick, the cute one, tells the story of how he met Eli, the chubby guy. Again, there’s subtext and meaning in this story that is conveyed later. Here, it just seems like a normal conversation.
Kat reveals she is an accessory to the married Sergey. Again, the subtext of the comment is revealed soon.
The friends dance. It seems like a lovely, fun gathering.
Transition to Josh and Iris, with Josh finishing his climax, rolling over, and telling Iris to ‘go to sleep.’ Again, there’s a subtext and a revelation built into this moment, besides the revelation that Josh is a lousy lover.
The next morning, Josh comes up with an excuse for why Iris should go down to the lake alone. When Iris leaves, Josh hooks up a thumb drive to his phone. We’ll find out why later.
At the lake, Iris finds a knife in her pocket as Sergey arrives. Why? We'll find out soon.
Sergeys takes hold of Iris and tells her ‘this is what you were made for.’ That it’s ‘what Kat wanted.' Again, subtext. We find out what it means later.
Next scene, friends in the living room. Iris enters with bloody knife, covered in blood.
As Iris relates what happened when Sergey attacked her, Josh tells her, “Iris, go to sleep.” Iris’ eyes roll and turn white.
Iris is an artificial girl.
Now many comments take on a new meaning.
This is plot point one, a major turning point for the story. The action has to advance now. There's no going back to the old, seemingly relaxed gathering.
Iris is tied to a chair while asleep. Josh and Eli decide that Eli will call the police. Josh pulls up a chair to say goodbye to Iris. He uses a code to wake her.
Josh now has to convince Iris she is a companion robot he has sex with, not a real girl with memories.
We have a flashback where a tech crew delivers the Iris robot to Josh’s place. Josh is told Iris can’t hurt another human, and there's an emergency turn off button behind her ear.
We see Iris imprint on Josh, then back to their meeting at the store, which has a new meaning now. It’s just an implanted memory. It never happened.
Josh keeps trying to convince Iris she’s not real, but Iris feels real to herself. She wants to go home and resume their old life. This is interrupted by Kat telling Josh to just shut down Iris, which is frightening to Iris.
Josh and Kat speak about the ‘plan’ and it hasn’t really changed. We have to wait to find out what the plan is, setting up another revelation.
Left alone, Iris uses the knife she dropped on the floor to free herself and smacks Josh in the throat when he tries to stop her. She takes the device used to program her. When Kat enters, Iris offers detailed instructions on how to help Josh, then flees.
Now we have a bundle of more questions. Where will Iris go? Can the others stop her? What happens when the police show? So many questions. It’s wonderful.
It turns out that Josh programmed Iris to be more aggressive and deleted the program that prevented her from hurting a human. The plan, apparently, was to have Iris kill Sergey, the plan was to kill then steal twelve million dollars in a house safe.
Arguing about the split, it turns out chubby guy’s cute boyfriend is a robot.
Now they have to track down Iris. Eli takes a gun from the safe.
Iris experiments with the device that controls her programming, increasing her intelligence from forty to one hundred percent.
In the woods, it comes out that Eli’s sex bot Patrick knows it is a robot. And the sex bot doesn’t care, it still loves Eli. Just then, Iris’ device buzzes, alerting Eli to her presence. In a chase, Eli and Iris collide and Iris uses the gun to dispatch Eli.
Josh, Kat, and Patrick observe the scene.
Iris runs to Josh’s car, but it’s only activated by his voice. Iris programs her voice to sound like Josh. The car starts, but soon Josh uses his cell to remotely turn the car off. He calls Iris and tries to convince her they can blame everything on Patrick and go home.
In a funny phone call Iris breaks up with Josh. She tells him, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Worked on Steinfeld, works here.
Josh reprograms Patrick to fall in love with Josh so he’ll track down and disable Iris.
A cop dispatched to Sergey's mansion finds Iris on the side of the road. She changes her language to German since she can’t lie, but the cop knows something is up.
The cop is arresting Iris as Patrick, aggression level at 100, approaches. Patrick kills the cop and disables Iris.
When Patrick returns to Sergey’s place in the cop car, Kat and Josh have to digest adding a dead cop to what they have to explain away.
We learn from Kat that Sergey was not a mobster; he sold sod, dirt. This sets off Josh on a rant about the women in his life.
Josh orders Patrick to stop Kat from leaving, which he does by sticking a knife in her back.
Patrick makes a cozy dinner for Josh and Iris, handcuffed to a chair at the dinner table.
Josh tries to blame her for what’s happened and justify his life. Iris reads Josh the riot act about the truth of his life. Josh turns Iris’ intelligence to zero and orders her to burn her hand on a candle to test whether Iris does feel pain.
She does. Iris' plastic hand goes up in flames.
Josh orders Iris to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. She says no, but still pulls the trigger. This conveys she is alive as she dies.
Josh now tells a story to the tech outfit that has arrived to take Iris’ body, his story confirmed by Deputy Hendrik (Patrick in his uniform).
Josh learns from the techs that Iris’ cpu is in her stomach, not her head, so everything she has experienced during the weekend has been recorded.
Getting ready to drive away, the techs talk about knowing Josh was lying. Before they can leave, Patrick blocks their path. He eliminates the driver just as the driver realizes Patrick is an older model robot. Patrick kills the driver and chases the other tech.
Meanwhile, in the tech van, Iris is rebooted.
What now?
Compelling question.
Iris disrupts Patrick killing the second tech, and gets Patrick to remember he was in love with Eli, not Josh. Patrick takes his own life.
Iris confronts Josh, telling him that with the tech’s help, she is fully independent now. But Josh uses her feelings for him to gain control. Until Iris gives Josh the command to fall asleep, and then puts him to sleep with an automatic wine bottle cork puller that screws into Josh’s head. The cork puller has been shown in operation earlier.
The next morning in the shower, Iris pulls the melted plastic from her burned hand. She’s free now. With 12 million dollars.
In a voice over, Iris relates that she has a sense of purpose now that Josh is dead, going back to her opening voice over.
Now she’s free and on the road. Passing a couple on the highway, with a man lecturing a woman who turns to smile her frustration at Iris, Iris waves with her robot hand. She is who she is.
End of film.
Companion is a fun movie to watch and a great example of subtext in dialogue and action. Revelations are built into the story and plot at a steady rate.
Just about everything said or done in the first twenty five minutes has a subtext.
I too often have read scripts where the dialogue has no subtext and the plot grinds away with few revelations.
Companion is a good resource for new screenwriters to learn the craft of screenwriting. I recommend it.
Happy viewing.