Consider this a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who appreciate scary movies: Sit down with your partner and view Together. The independent film success of 2025 just made its launch on a streaming platform via Hulu. On the surface, it could look like standard body horror, but beneath Together resides a profound meditation about how we choose to love each other.
A Debut Feature Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together represents the introductory feature for director Michael Shanks. It stars the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have been together for over ten years. Having wed in actuality in 2017, the two stars infuse a particular energy to their characters, expertly portraying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The story starts when Millie and Tim transition from the big city to the rural area for her career. A familiar narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the tropes cease. Together becomes as much a examination of mental states of the couple's dynamic as it is a body horror flick.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While trekking near their country house, a violent storm occurs, and Millie and Tim discover an underground cave. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a strange force takes hold of the couple. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying horror experience, interspersing elements of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but tastefully done) body horror, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes during something disturbing). Shanks orchestrates these parts expertly and delivers them in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie's sense of self and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a lack of intimacy. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his reluctance to focus on anything other than his failing musical ambitions gradually emerges.
In contrast, Tim's character senses confinement and separated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve left the city and removed from his support system. He dreads the concept of completely losing his individual identity in Millie. This fear is further exacerbated by the circumstance he lacks a driver's license and relies on Millie for mobility.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he never makes Tim or Millie the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie face the kind of problems that come with long-term unions a decade in. Deep down, they have affection for one another. They find humor with each other, offer support, and open up at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent current of uncertainty about their future together.
Allegory and Meaning
While the otherworldly presence in Together represent these anxieties of codependency and giving oneself over to another person, the metaphor never feels clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these visceral horror elements provide a brilliant analogue to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal work together in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has sparked debate on the story's concluding statement about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have interpreted the film as a powerful case for staying single. Conversely, a few pairs having disagreements found that the film actually helped them make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could potentially serve as a revealing measure of how you think about commitment. Will the finale inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits 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 experiment you can experience today.
Together is streaming on Hulu's platform as of this moment.
