Companion

Grade: A-

After months of seeing trailers for Companion, I couldn’t get my mind around exactly what it was about, or even close to it. I thought I had the vaguest outline of a theory, and turned out to be wrong about most of it. All I knew was it looked bonkers (it is). The plot might be more obvious to you than it was to me. Watching the trailer again, I can’t believe that I didn’t pick up on some things, but there is also a healthy dose of clever editing/cherry-picking of shots with the intent of misleading. IMDb’s one-sentence summary (of which I recommend you steer clear) gives away a pretty big secondary detail, but doesn’t even touch upon the biggest plot point.

I’m reminded of a musical (later made into a film) that chronicles the progression of a relationship. It jumps back and forth between the man and the woman’s perspectives, but there’s a catch. We see her journey backwards (from the painful breakup to ending at the happy beginning), while his side of the story moves in the traditional chronology. There is one scene where they’re in the same time, but otherwise, their narratives travel in opposite directions. I always wondered when theatre goers seeing the show had their “a ha” moment. At what point did they catch on?

Companion has a “if you haven’t figured it out by now, we’re about to come right out and say it” moment, but a few crumbs here and there beforehand got me thinking it was heading where it goes. You will likely realize what’s going on before it’s explicitly spelled out, but once you see Companion, I’m very interested to hear when you caught on, and what made it click for you. It’s really quite ingenious how this new information makes you rethink earlier scenes and beats. It gives everything a new context, and may even make you want to watch some of it again.

I’ll tell you some of what we get right off the bat. Jack Quaid (the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid) and Sophie Thatcher (recently so great as a young, plucky Jehova’s Witness in Heretic) star as Josh and Iris. We see them have a Meet Cute in a supermarket. He spills a bunch of oranges. Cut to them road-tripping to a friend of a friend’s ridiculously tricked-out mansion in the mountains. They’ve been dating for a while by this point, and Iris is nervous about meeting Josh’s friends – hoping to make a good impression. They settle in. Their lovemaking that night is surprisingly mechanical and unfeeling, especially on Josh’s part. The next morning, some violence happens.

Quaid seems to have come out of nowhere. He has a movie out in March called Novocaine, where he plays a character who doesn’t feel pain, no matter what you do to him. That’s funny and ironic. If you know, you know. Thatcher is perfect for who her character needs to be. Each new discovery – and there are many – adds to Companion’s quirky madcap fun. It’s infectious the way we get absorbed in each escalation.

It ends in a vindicating, celebratory blaze of “eat the patriarchy” glory, but not in an in-your-face way. It’s sneaky-fun how the message washes over you. So much of Companion blew my mind and got some wheels spinning that don’t normally spin, if I even knew I had them. After Presence, it’s funny to be reviewing a second movie in a row where I am vague, circumspect, and protective with details – but have I sufficiently teased you? I hope so.

Grade: A-