You Might Have Missed The Hidden Meaning Behind A Song In Companion

The following contains mild spoilers for "Companion."

"Companion" is the first big surprise of the movie year, a funny, thrilling film with a great cast and an even better twist. As Chris Evangelista wrote in his review for /Film, "'Companion' is the first great film of 2025 — a funny, fast-moving, meticulously crafted horror-thriller with a killer performance from lead Sophie Thatcher."

The film follows Iris (Thatcher), who goes on a weekend getaway trip with her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) to visit a group of his friends at a remote cabin that quickly turns into a chaotic bloodbath. The film also stars Lukas Gage, Harvey Guillén, Megan Suri, and Ruper Friend.

This is a notoriously hard movie to talk about without talking about its premise and the first-act twist, which the second trailer already openly revealed. Still, if you don't want to know anything about what "Companion" is actually about, then just know that the film features a bit of meta fun, as the song that plays when Iris meets Josh is the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," a song popularized in the movie "City of Angels" starring Jack Quaid's real-life mom, Meg Ryan.

If you have already seen "Companion" or don't care about knowing the basic premise of the film, then read on, because the song is not just a fun bit of trivia, but an early hint of the true nature of Iris.

The big twist in "Companion" is that Iris is not just an incredibly loving girlfriend who lives to please Josh, she is quite literally a robot — an emotional support robot, to be more specific. Everything she feels about Josh is actually just part of her programming. Her memory of meeting him is but one of a set of predetermined meet-cute stories Josh selected when he ordered her. It is a shocking revelation that changes everything for Iris, and Sophie Thatcher masterfully portrays the paradigm shift in Iris as she decides to finally take the reins of her life.

But before we find out she is a robot, the first hint that there is something strange about Iris is in the first scene we see Iris meet Josh. As mentioned, the song "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls plays over the scene, a song specifically written for the 1998 film "City of Angels." In a 2013 interview with Songfacts, songwriter John Rzeznik talked about being inspired by Nicolas Cage's character in the film — he plays an immortal angel who wants to become mortal after falling in love with a human woman, a role Cage used as practice to play Superman. "This guy is completely willing to give up his own immortality, just to be able to feel something very human," Rzeznik said in the interview. "What an amazing thing it must be like to love someone so much that you give up everything to be with them."

The sheer intensity of the love Cage's character has for Meg Ryan's character parallels what Iris thinks she feels for Josh, a burning desire to make him happy at any cost is an early hint that she was programmed to feel that way.

"Companion" is a clever movie, and a very funny one, too. Its portrayal of the dangers of using technology as a replacement for human connection and how it can boost the worst traits in us is fascinating, nuanced, and terrifying. Still, it is also a movie that knows when to be cheeky, both with the choice of songs or with a clever nod to "T2: Judgment Day." Let's hope audiences react just as well to the movie.