"Companion" (2025)

One of the challenges of writing about films is that analysis can sometimes sound like endorsement. Just because a movie raises interesting questions does not mean it is a movie I would recommend. Companion falls into that category for me. It is well-made, well-acted, and built around ideas worth discussing. At the same time, it is filled with content and themes that many Christians would rightly find objectionable. While I think it can serve as a useful conversation starter, it is not a film I would encourage most believers to seek out simply because I found its central ideas interesting.

That qualification matters because the film is asking a question that reaches far beyond artificial intelligence. On the surface, Companion is about a world where lifelike AI companions can provide affection, intimacy, and emotional support. Like much good science fiction, however, the technology is not really the point. The AI functions as a mirror, reflecting something about the people who created it and the people who use it.

The film's central character does not really want a relationship. He wants the benefits of a relationship without the demands that make relationships meaningful. He wants affection without vulnerability. He wants companionship without sacrifice. He wants intimacy without another person's independent will. The AI companion becomes attractive precisely because she can be adjusted, controlled, and customized to meet his desires.

That is where the film becomes surprisingly insightful. The problem is not artificial intelligence. The problem is the human heart.

As I watched the film, I found myself thinking less about technology and more about Augustine's understanding of disordered love. Augustine argued that sin is not usually the love of bad things. More often, it is the love of good things in the wrong way. We take gifts and turn them inward. We use them to serve ourselves rather than to serve others. Love becomes possession. Relationships become consumption. Other people become instruments for our happiness rather than neighbors to be cherished.

That is exactly what happens in Companion. The AI companion is appealing because she removes the friction that real relationships require. There is no need for patience, forgiveness, compromise, or self-sacrifice. The very qualities that make love costly and transformative can simply be programmed away.

Yet the film understands something important. A relationship without vulnerability is not actually a relationship. A love that demands nothing from us eventually becomes another form of self-love. The more control the characters gain, the less capable they become of genuine connection.

In that sense, Companion may be one of the more interesting AI films of recent years because it shifts the focus away from machines becoming human and toward humans becoming less human. The danger is not that artificial intelligence develops consciousness. The danger is that we become so accustomed to customized experiences that we lose interest in dealing with real people. Technology increasingly promises to remove inconvenience from our lives. The film asks what happens when we begin treating other human beings as inconveniences as well.

That question feels increasingly relevant. Social media algorithms already curate our information. Streaming services curate our entertainment. Digital platforms are constantly learning our preferences and adapting themselves to our desires. Companion simply extends that logic into the realm of relationships. It imagines a world where even love can be personalized, optimized, and controlled.

The irony is that such a world does not make us happier, but isolated. We are created for relationships that require humility, patience, sacrifice, and grace. Those qualities are often difficult, but they are also what make love real. (Which is why free will exists, but that is a topic for another one of these AI films.)

For that reason, I find Companion more valuable as a conversation than as a recommendation. The film is not one I would place on a list of movies Christians should rush to watch. Yet it does expose something true about the human condition. The deepest threat posed by artificial intelligence is that we use technology to avoid becoming the kind of people God calls us to be. In trying to create relationships that perfectly serve ourselves, we may discover that we have lost the capacity for the very love we were made for.