Here's a test for those in enduring partnerships who enjoy the horror genre: Sit down with your partner and view Together. The independent film success of 2025 has now made its streaming debut via Hulu. At first glance, it may seem like standard body horror, but inside Together lies a profound contemplation about how we choose to love one another.
A Debut Feature Delving into The Nuances of Love
Together is the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It showcases the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have remained a couple for over ten years. Married in reality in 2017, the actors bring a particular energy to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The story begins when Millie and Tim transition from the urban environment to the countryside for professional reasons. A commonly used plot device, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the tropes cease. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Paranormal Spark
While trekking near their new home, a violent storm occurs, and the two discover an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a mysterious influence starts to affect the duo. This force induces a supernatural closeness between them that goes far beyond emotional intimacy.
The whole movie is a methodically building horror experience, weaving in bits of hallucinatory nightmares, disturbing (but never too gross) body horror, and authentically humorous exchanges (sometimes during something grotesque). Shanks skillfully blends these components seamlessly and delivers them in a consistently growing aura of dread.
Layered Performances
A large part of Together is solely the performances of its stars, and they skillfully illustrate numerous complexities to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a lack of intimacy. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his reluctance to pursue anything but his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim feels trapped and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve left the city and removed from his support system. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is intensified by the reality he does not operate a vehicle and needs Millie for getting around.
The director's cleverest decision is that he never makes one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
Both characters face the type of challenges that arise in most partnerships a decade in. Fundamentally, they have affection for one another. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an inescapable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to a partner, the symbolism never feels clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the horror and the drama serve the other in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s conclusion, which remains unspoiled, 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 avoiding commitment. Conversely, some couples experiencing tension found that the film ultimately assisted them resolve their issues.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could function as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in one of the characters and feel frustration, or simply turn to your significant other and state, “I understand that choice”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can embark on today.
Together is available to watch on the streaming service Hulu now.
