Rating: NR | Runtime: 91 minutes
Release Date: April 10th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Director(s): Alex Mallis & Travis Wood
Writer(s): Weston Auburn, Alex Mallis & Travis Wood

You sound cool talking out your ass.

The world is out to get Simon (Tristan Turner). At least, that’s his interpretation of what’s happening. It’s the industry not noticing him that’s forced him to milk screening his thesis short at festivals for two years. It’s the grind to survive in New York City that’s prevented him from drilling down and focusing on his new idea. And now it’s his best friend and roommate’s girlfriend who’s stealing the one thing Simon did have: free airline travel to feed his procrastination.

Alex Mallis and Travis Wood (who write alongside Weston Auburn) have crafted a comedic look at how we often become so wrapped up in our artistic ambitions that we stop being able to recognize it’s not the world’s responsibility to care about them too. Based on Wood’s own experiences, The Travel Companion presents a character that literally cannot see past his own nose. Despite what many believe, you don’t need to be born into privilege to be entitled.

No, anxiety about money can sometimes prove just as fertile an environment as having money when it comes to forming a myopic viewpoint of life. While a nepo baby can demand things because they’ve only ever known unfettered access, a dreamer will demand them because they believe they’ve put in the time and effort to deserve that access. The latter see their own luck as a reward for doing it “the right way” and the luck of others as blatant theft.

Why does Simon deserve to be Bruce’s (Anthony Oberbeck) travel companion (a special designation airline employees are allowed to give one person—usually a spouse—that grants them unlimited, free stand-by flights)? Because he’s known him since third grade. He’s put in the time. He buys him a sandwich after work. He pretends to care about his life in the pauses between talking about himself. So, who does Beatrice (Naomi Asa) think she is to take it away?

Well, not only is she Bruce’s increasingly more serious girlfriend, but she’s a budding filmmaker as well. It was Simon’s latest screening where they both meet her, so he of course isn’t against playing the not-quite-true card that he set them up as a reason why keeping his travel companion label is actually just common decency as a thank you for opening them up to love. It therefore only makes him angrier when her career starts to take off at the exact same time.

Beatrice quickly becomes the epitome of everything he hates rather than the proof that it’s possible to achieve everything he loves because jealousy is easier to embrace than humility. Once that interpretation solidifies in Simon’s brain, it proves impossible to stop the descent into Hell that awaits. His penchant for solipsistic tangents increases as he begins to put both feet in his mouth every time he talks instead of just one.

It’s an uncomfortable phenomenon fostering a second-hand embarrassment that evolves as the film progresses. Because it’s visible in the opening scene wherein a festival programmer invites the filmmakers of a shorts block to the front of the theater only to have Simon awkwardly be left out from talking. There’s a self-deprecating nature to this example, though, as Bruce laughs with him about the absurdity of the scenario and Simon’s admitted creative stasis.

Simon’s loquaciousness is endearing at this point of the story because we are still able to accept the filter he’s presented about his life. It’s still a joke—one that he’s in on. The more we spend time with him, however, the more that seems like us giving him a benefit of the doubt he did not earn. We begin to realize his entire outlook is one where he is the sun and everyone around him exists to either prop him up or tear him down (sometimes in succession).

It can get pretty off-putting once Simon inevitably crosses that point of no return where forgiveness is concerned. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but I’ve always found it difficult to stay invested in this type of story when there’s no desire to let the main character get out of his own way. This is especially true when you have Beatrice right there to prove it doesn’t need to be that way. I prayed she and Bruce would love themselves enough to escape his orbit.

That also is a relevant direction as a commentary on our ability to push our biggest champions away because they had the gall to live their lives on their own terms rather than ours, but I keep getting stuck on the directors talking about Simon and Bruce’s friendship being “beyond its expiration date.” That makes it seem like there’s been a mutual miscommunication rather than a clear example of one side proving he’s exploited their relationship the whole time.

I think that disparity is why The Travel Companion never quite sat perfectly for me. It’s good and I like a lot of what it says, but there’s a sense that we’re meant to feel sorry for Simon that simply didn’t jive with my experience with what’s on-screen. That instead of realizing he’s the wall preventing himself from growing, he’s decided to conquer the wall they built to keep him down by building his own. It’s the tale of a misanthrope morphing into his final form.

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From L to R: Naomi Asa as Beatrice, Anthony Oberbeck as Bruce, and Tristan Turner as Simon in THE TRAVEL COMPANION. Photo credit: Jason Chiu. Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.