Here's a test for long-term couples who are fans of scary movies: Sit down with your loved one and view Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its launch on a streaming platform via Hulu. Outwardly, it may seem like conventional biological terror, but within Together exists a profound examination about how we choose to love our partners.
A Directorial Debut Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together represents the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It showcases Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, partners that have remained a couple for over ten years. Having wed in actuality in 2017, the two stars contribute a particular energy to their characters, skillfully embodying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The plot starts when Millie and Tim transition from the urban environment to the rural area for her career. A commonly used plot device, sure, but that’s mostly where the conventions cease. Together transforms 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 walking near their country house, a storm hits, and the protagonists fall into an underground cave. After a night spent there and finally finding a way out, a strange force takes hold of the pair. This force compels a paranormal intimacy between them that goes well past simple connection.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying of scares, blending bits of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but never too gross) body horror, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes during something disturbing). Shanks skillfully blends these components expertly and wraps them up in a gradually swelling aura of dread.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is solely the performances of its stars, and they deftly portray countless layers to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve moved to the country and removed from his social circle. He is terrified of the concept of totally forfeiting his individual identity in his partner. This fear is intensified by the reality he does not operate a vehicle and needs Millie for mobility.
Shanks’ smartest move in Together never makes one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters grapple with the type of challenges that come with any relationship over a long period. At their core, they still love one another. They share moments of joy, provide solace, and open up at times. But beneath it all, there’s an persistent undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together represent these concerns of codependency and giving oneself over to a partner, the metaphor never feels clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments provide a perfect parallel to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal work together symbiotically.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has left audiences divided on the story's concluding statement about unhealthy partnerships. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a strong argument for remaining unattached. Conversely, certain partners having disagreements found that the film ultimately assisted them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a revealing measure of how you think about commitment. Will the conclusion inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you recognize your own traits in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply turn to your other half and utter, “I understand that choice”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can embark on right now.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform now.
