Hot on the heels of her tremendous turn in Heretic, Sophie Thatcher proves she’s the scream queen to beat with this post-artificial intelligence comic spin on The Stepford Wives.
Drew Hancock’s playful romp opens with a classic meet-cute: Thatcher’s Iris, a vintage-chic pixie, catches the eye of Jack Quaid’s adorably dorky Josh in the grocery aisle. Oops, he spills all the oranges. Cut to the minted, lovey couple heading to a secluded lakeside pile to spend the weekend with Josh’s strangely disapproving friends and a broadly drawn Russian oligarch (Rupert Friend, having fun under a mullet).
There are hints before an early, crucial reveal: Iris is not a manic pixie dream girl: she’s a manic pixie dream android. “I hate the word f**k-bot,” Josh whines as he learns the terrible truth. “You’re an emotional support robot that f**ks.”
One violent act later the talented young cast, including Lukas Gage, from Euphoria, and Megan Suri, from It Lives Inside, turn against the unlucky heroine.
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Hancock’s script is less concerned with Isaac Asimov’s protocols and hard science. The “companions” he writes are accessories to performative existences, defined by photogenic perfection and meet-cutes picked from a dropdown menu.
The heart of the movie, for all its high jinx, is the doting, docile heroine’s slow realisation that the man she was programmed to love is a domestic abuser and all-around dirtbag. As in Ex Machina, the entitled guy, not the accommodating machine, is the villain.
That reckoning is entertainingly punctuated by horror pyrotechnics and quick reprogrammings. We salute the costume and continuity departments (Betty Austin) on Iris’s consistently bloody frills as she runs, fights and reasons for her “life”. We are with her every step of the way.
In cinemas from Friday
