Here's a challenge for long-term couples who enjoy scary movies: Settle in with your partner and watch Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its online premiere on the Hulu service. At first glance, it could look like typical body horror, but inside Together lies a intense meditation about our choices in loving our partners.
A Debut Feature Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together marks the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have stayed together for a decade. Married in reality in 2017, the actors bring a particular energy to their roles, skillfully embodying both the joys and frustrations of a enduring union.
The plot commences when Millie and Tim move from the metropolis to the country for Millie’s job. A commonly used story element, admittedly, but that’s largely where the cliches conclude. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the partnership as it is a film about physical terror.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While trekking near their rural residence, a tempest descends, and Millie and Tim fall into an subterranean cavern. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a mysterious influence takes hold of the pair. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes well past typical partnership.
The whole movie is a methodically building of scares, interspersing moments of dreamlike terrors, disturbing (but never too gross) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes amidst something horrific). Shanks orchestrates these parts expertly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Complex Characterizations
A large part of Together is only the two lead actors, and they masterfully render numerous complexities to the characters’ relationship. Millie’s confidence and emotional bond is waning due to a emotional and physical gap. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to pursue anything but his struggling artistic pursuits inexorably rises.
In contrast, Tim's character feels trapped and cut off by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve left the city and far away from his social circle. He is terrified of the notion of totally forfeiting his individual identity in another person. This fear is amplified by the reality he does not operate a vehicle and relies on Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move in Together avoids making one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie confront the sort of issues that are inherent in any relationship over a long period. At their core, they continue to care for one another. They still laugh together, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the paranormal elements in Together symbolize these fears of codependency and giving oneself over to another person, the symbolism does not come across as hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these visceral horror elements present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s conclusion, which is best experienced firsthand, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a powerful case for staying single. Conversely, certain partners experiencing tension found that the film ultimately assisted them reconcile.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own response could function as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply glance toward your other half and state, “I understand that choice”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can undertake right now.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform at present.
