Here's a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who are fans of scary movies: Get comfortable with your partner and view Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie just made its launch on a streaming platform on the Hulu service. On the surface, it could look like conventional biological terror, but within Together lies a intense contemplation about the ways we decide to love our partners.
A Directorial Debut Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together marks the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features 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 ten years. United in marriage in reality in 2017, the two stars contribute a unique chemistry to their portrayals, skillfully embodying both the strengths and weaknesses of a committed partnership.
The narrative begins when Tim and Millie relocate from the big city to the countryside for her career. A commonly used narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s largely where the tropes end. Together becomes as much a psychological exploration of the partnership as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While walking near their rural residence, a storm hits, and the protagonists tumble into an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and finally finding a way out, a strange force begins influencing the duo. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The whole movie is a gradually intensifying horror experience, weaving in moments of hallucinatory nightmares, gross (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes in the middle of something disturbing). Shanks skillfully blends these components expertly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is solely Brie and Franco, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to chase only his struggling artistic pursuits gradually emerges.
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 support system. He fears the concept of utterly sacrificing his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the reality he does not operate a vehicle and needs Millie for mobility.
The director's cleverest decision in Together never makes either of his characters the obvious villain.
Both characters confront the type of challenges that arise in most partnerships a decade in. Deep down, they still love one another. They still laugh together, provide solace, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together act as a metaphor for these fears of excessive reliance and giving oneself over to a partner, the metaphor does not come across as hamfisted or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a brilliant analogue to the character-driven drama. Both the supernatural and the personal work together in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which won’t be spoiled here, has sparked debate on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. It has been said that unattached audience members have seen the movie as a strong argument for remaining unattached. Meanwhile, some couples who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them resolve their issues.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending plant a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in one of the characters and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your partner and state, “I’d do that for you”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can undertake today.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu now.
