We present a test for those in enduring partnerships who appreciate scary movies: Get comfortable with your significant other and watch Together. This 2025 indie hit just made its launch on a streaming platform on the Hulu service. Outwardly, it could look like conventional body horror, but inside Together exists a deep examination about the ways we decide to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together represents the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks. It stars the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for ten years. United in marriage in actuality in 2017, Franco and Brie infuse a special spark to their portrayals, masterfully depicting both the joys and frustrations of a long-term relationship.
The story begins when the couple transition from the big city to the country for Millie’s job. A commonly used narrative setup, of course, but that’s largely where the tropes conclude. Together becomes as much a examination of mental states of the pair’s relationship as it is a film about physical terror.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their rural residence, a storm hits, and the two tumble into an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and finally finding a way out, a strange force begins influencing the pair. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The whole movie is a slow burn fright fest, blending moments of dreamlike terrors, unsettling (but never too gross) biological grotesqueries, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes in the middle of something grotesque). Shanks orchestrates these parts expertly and wraps them up in a gradually swelling sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is solely the two lead actors, and they deftly portray countless layers to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim feels trapped and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve left the city and distant from his network of friends. He dreads the idea of completely losing his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is intensified by the fact he can’t drive and relies on Millie for mobility.
The director's cleverest decision in Together avoids making one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters grapple with the sort of issues that come with long-term unions after ten years. Deep down, they still love one another. They still laugh together, offer support, and open up at times. But under the surface, there’s an persistent current of uncertainty about their future together.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the otherworldly presence in Together represent these concerns of unhealthy attachment and totally devoting oneself to another person, the allegory avoids being clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a ideal counterpart to the character-driven drama. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other symbiotically.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. It has been said that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for staying single. Meanwhile, certain partners experiencing tension found that the film ultimately assisted them resolve their issues.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could function as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion inspire anxiety and horror, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you see yourself in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply look at your other half and utter, “I understand that choice”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can embark on right now.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu at present.
