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Josh and Iris meet cute in the fruit section of a supermarket, beaming at each other over crates of melons and carefully stacked mounds of oranges. Later, looking back in a retrospective voiceover, Iris tells us this initial encounter was one of those magical moments you might experience just once in a lifetime. However, "For me it happened twice," she says. "The first was the day I met Josh, and the second, the day I killed him."

This key plot point in the new movie "Companion" is given away in the film's trailer, which would normally seem ill-advised. But writer-director Drew Hancock has enough swerves and turns going on in his debut feature that waiting for an intentionally unsurprising narrative stratagem to click into place is part of the fun -- which is considerable: The movie is a lively stir-fry of sci-fi, rom-com, crime thriller and clever, straight-faced comedy.

Another substantial facet of the film that's revealed in the trailer is that the lead character, Iris (played by "Yellowjackets" star Sophie Thatcher, one of the two Mormon girls menaced by Hugh Grant in last year's "Heretic"), is a robot. Of a specialized sort. "You're a companion robot," says Josh (Jack Quaid), her toad of a boyfriend, breaking this news. "I hate the word 'fuckbot,' 'cause you do so much more than that. You're an emotional support robot. ..."

Director Hancock dispatches Josh and Iris to a weekend gathering at an elegant lake house owned by a Russian mobster named Sergey (a farfetched character played by Rupert Friend). Sergey is currently living with Kat (Megan Suri), Josh's ex-girlfriend, who's not mourning his absence in her life (although Sergey's presence in it is beginning to get on her wick). Rounding out the weekend guest list are Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage), a gay couple whose affectionate relationship brings an emotional glow to the sometimes bloody proceedings.

The movie's central subject -- the question of what it means to be human -- is a sci-fi staple, and has been treated many times in pictures like "Ex Machina," the "Body Snatchers" and "Stepford Wives" movies, and Ridley Scott's "Alien," "Blade Runner," and "Prometheus." Iris is devasted to be told that nothing she thinks she knows is real. ("Your whole life is just an imitation of a life," Josh tells her -- adding that the supermarket meet-cute she so treasures is actually just a scenario he chose from a drop-down menu.) But Iris' memories, however artificial, are real to her. Which means ... what? It also turns out that her mind can evolve: Apart from the basic equipment installed by her manufacturer -- a host of foreign languages and confected memories ("I've been to Japan") -- her intelligence is adjustable, from zero to 100 (Ivy League level). When she locates her control app on Josh's phone and sees that she's been set to 40, she gets an idea that's definitely all her own.

Unlike Iris, who has much to complain about but never does, Josh whines incessantly about the ways in which the world mistreats him. "I'm a good guy," he tells Iris. "I'm decent. And what do I have to show for it? A cramped one-bedroom apartment and a robot girlfriend. I don't even own you -- you're a fucking rental."

To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

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