I was lucky enough to secure a couple of tickets for a preview screening of the new movie from the director of Barbarian, Companion, which will launch in most theathers next week, so here we go.

A modern tale of why you shouldn’t stick your dick in the toaster, even if you upgrade to “sex gynoid with the bahonkadonkas”, and especially you shouldn’t jailbreak the sexbot or hit it with the ol’ “not a real boy” spiel.

Iris and his boyfriend go to meet some friends at an isolated villa by the lake for a nice weekend, but little does she know they have a plan to rob the rich host and owner of the villa… because she known very little to begin with, as Iris is just an elaborate robot dutch wife, but after she’s framed by her “boyfriend/master” as the one to take the fall for the crimes that occur, with him pityingly telling her the truth about herself, she tries to escape and break free…

AKA the american remake of Iku: I, Robosex via Ex Machina we didn’t ask, nor we actually got, but it’s not a completely incorrect way of putting it, since it feels like someone watched Alex Garland movie and figured there was a way to make a black comedy horror romance film about misoginy, emancipation, agency and all the expected sci-fi themes coming with the gynoid/doll archetype, balancing the comedy and the horror to an impressive result.

I haven’t tried to hide the “reveal” since the marketing eventually gave away the twist (plus the movie itself doesn’t hide it much), but i’d say the movie it’s still quite strong, witty and engrossing even if you know it, since it has great performances, strong characters and great execution to “back that up”.

Pretty good.