Robot Girlfriend (2025) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Grefe
STARRING: Jamie Grefe, Sofia Papuashvili
RATED: UR/Region: O/1:78/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1 (BDr)
AVAILABLE FROM Leomark Studios
There are low-budget movies, and then there are movies that make you wonder if the director woke up on Monday morning and thought, “I have a camera, an afternoon, and absolutely no reason to stop making movies.”
Welcome to Robot Girlfriend: Revenge.
Although, if you’re looking at the Blu-ray, you might have to look twice because the title has apparently been put on a diet. The movie is officially listed as Robot Girlfriend: Revenge, but the Blu-ray simply calls it Robot Girlfriend.
Because apparently “Revenge” was too much commitment.
Directed by Jamie Grefe, the movie stars Grefe himself as Bryan, alongside Sofia Papuashvili as Nao, the titular robot girlfriend. And when I say the cast is small, I mean small. There are essentially two people carrying this entire movie on their backs. IMDb confirms Grefe as both director and one of the two stars, with Papuashvili playing Nao.
And honestly, I have to give them some credit for that.
There is something admirable about making an entire movie with essentially two actors, a tiny setup, and a concept that could have easily turned into complete nonsense.
Of course…
It kind of does.
The basic idea is that Bryan has a robot girlfriend named Nao, and things start getting a little weird when this supposedly perfect artificial companion begins developing feelings and, more importantly, murderous impulses.
Because apparently even artificial intelligence eventually reaches the point where it says:
“You know what? Fuck this guy.”
And really, who among us can blame her?
The movie has a deliberately stripped-down, almost experimental feel to it. There’s not a huge cast, there aren’t elaborate sets, and there certainly isn’t a Marvel-sized special-effects budget hiding somewhere behind the couch. Instead, Grefe tries to get mileage out of the relationship between Bryan and Nao and the increasingly uncomfortable idea of a man treating his robot girlfriend like a product that needs to be tested, adjusted, and controlled.
There’s actually a pretty decent idea buried in there.
What does happen when the thing you created to love you starts developing a mind of its own?
What happens when your perfect girlfriend realizes she has absolutely no reason to put up with your shit?
And what happens when she discovers knives?
Apparently, that’s when the relationship counseling ends.
Sofia Papuashvili deserves some credit here because playing a robot without turning into a human being doing a bad impression of a robot can’t be particularly easy. Nao has to exist somewhere between mechanical programming and actual emotion, and Papuashvili gives the character an appropriately strange, detached quality.
Grefe is also perfectly fine in the other lead role, although watching the director star in his own movie does give the whole thing an even more DIY quality.
It’s basically a two-person production where the director can turn around and say:
“Okay, cut.”
And then immediately answer:
“Got it.”
The movie’s biggest problem is that the concept is considerably stronger than the amount of material Grefe has to work with. At 71 minutes, Robot Girlfriend isn’t exactly an epic, but even that runtime can feel stretched in places.
There are moments where you can almost see the movie trying to figure out how to fill another ten minutes.
“Okay, she’s swept the floor.”
“Great.”
“Now what?”
“Have her sweep it again.”
Cinema!
And this brings me to my biggest criticism of Grefe as a filmmaker.
The man appears to have a serious problem with stopping.
According to Grefe’s own filmography, he has an absolutely ridiculous number of projects associated with 2025 and 2026, and his own site lists an enormous collection of features and micro-dramas. Another contemporary review described him as having dozens of directing credits since 2024.
And look, I respect the hell out of somebody who just keeps making movies.
Seriously.
Most people talk about making movies.
Jamie Grefe apparently wakes up and makes another one before breakfast.
But at some point, I’d almost like to see him slow the hell down.
Instead of making approximately 900 movies a year with thin plots and microscopic budgets, I’d love to see what he could do if he took one or two of these ideas, gave them more time to develop, expanded the cast a little, tightened the scripts, and really went after them.
Because there’s clearly an imagination here.
Robot Girlfriend has a decent little sci-fi/horror idea at its center, and the tiny cast and minimal setup actually work in its favor at times. There’s an intimacy to it that can become genuinely uncomfortable, and the relationship between Bryan and Nao has enough weirdness to keep you watching.
But it also feels like a sketch that desperately wants to become a feature.
And maybe that’s the problem with having a director who apparently makes movies at the speed most people make sandwiches.
Some movies need to marinate.
Not everything needs to be released while the camera is still warm.
Still, I can’t completely hate the thing.
There’s something oddly admirable about Robot Girlfriend . It’s scrappy, weird, minimalist, and completely committed to its little two-person science-fiction nightmare. Papuashvili gives Nao enough personality to make the robot interesting, and the central concept has enough potential that I kept thinking about what a bigger, more polished version of this could look like.
So, no, this isn’t exactly The Terminator.
It’s more like The Terminator’s extremely broke cousin who lives in a studio apartment and shoots everything on Tuesday.
But there’s an idea here.
There’s ambition here.
And there’s definitely a filmmaker here who is willing to actually make the damn things.
Now I’d just like to see Jamie Grefe make fewer of them.
Give me one really fleshed-out, polished, completely batshit movie instead of twenty quick ones that feel like they were conceived, shot, edited, and released before the coffee got cold.
Because if Robot Girlfriend proves anything, it’s that the robot isn’t the only thing that needs an upgrade.
The filmmaker does too.
