Here's a test for those in enduring partnerships who enjoy scary movies: Get comfortable with your loved one and watch Together. This 2025 indie hit has now made its launch on a streaming platform via Hulu. Outwardly, it might appear like typical body horror, but beneath Together resides a profound meditation about the ways we decide to love each other.
An Introductory Film Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together is the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, partners that have remained a couple for ten years. Married in real life in 2017, the actors bring a unique chemistry to their portrayals, expertly portraying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The story starts when Tim and Millie relocate from the urban environment to the rural area for professional reasons. A familiar story element, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the cliches cease. Together evolves into as much a examination of mental states of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While trekking near their rural residence, a violent storm occurs, and Millie and Tim discover an subterranean cavern. After being trapped overnight there and finally finding a way out, a supernatural entity takes hold of the duo. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The entire film is a methodically building horror experience, interspersing moments of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and genuinely funny dialogue (sometimes amidst something grotesque). Shanks skillfully blends these components expertly and delivers them in a consistently growing aura of dread.
Nuanced Portrayals
A significant portion of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a lack of intimacy. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to pursue anything but his floundering music career inexorably rises.
Tim, on the other hand senses confinement and separated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve left the city and far away from his social circle. He fears the idea of utterly sacrificing his personal autonomy in another person. This fear is amplified by the fact he lacks a driver's license and is dependent on Millie for mobility.
Shanks’ smartest move in Together avoids making one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
The couple confront the kind of problems that arise in any relationship after ten years. At their core, they continue to care for each other. They still laugh together, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an inescapable current of uncertainty about their relationship.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the otherworldly presence in Together act as a metaphor for these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to another person, the metaphor does not come across as clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a brilliant analogue to the character-driven drama. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that unattached audience members have interpreted the film as a compelling reason for remaining unattached. On the other hand, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could potentially serve as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the conclusion inspire anxiety and horror, or a positive outlook on love? Will you identify in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply turn to your other half and state, “I’d do that for you”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can embark on at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu now.
