Consider this a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who enjoy scary movies: Settle in with your significant other and view Together. This critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its launch on a streaming platform via Hulu. On the surface, it may seem like standard body horror, but within Together resides a deep contemplation about the ways we decide to love one another.
A Debut Feature Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together marks the introductory feature for director Michael Shanks. It showcases the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, partners that have stayed together for over ten years. Married in reality in 2017, the actors contribute a unique chemistry to their portrayals, masterfully depicting both the strengths and weaknesses of a enduring union.
The plot begins when Millie and Tim relocate from the big city to the country for her career. A commonly used narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the conventions end. Together evolves into as much a psychological exploration of the couple's dynamic as it is a film about physical terror.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While trekking near their new home, a violent storm occurs, and Millie and Tim fall into an underground cave. After spending the night there and eventually escaping, a mysterious influence starts to affect the couple. This force creates a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The entire film is a slow burn fright fest, interspersing moments of dreamlike terrors, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes in the middle of something grotesque). Shanks skillfully blends these components neatly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A significant portion of Together is only the two lead actors, and they skillfully illustrate manifold depths to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a lack of intimacy. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his reluctance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve relocated rural and distant from his network of friends. He fears the idea of utterly sacrificing his individual identity in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for getting around.
The film's most intelligent aspect is that he avoids making one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie face the sort of issues that come with most partnerships after ten years. Fundamentally, they have affection for one another. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and open up at times. But under the surface, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to a partner, the symbolism never feels overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments provide a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that single viewers have seen the movie as a compelling reason for remaining unattached. Conversely, certain partners experiencing tension found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own interpretation could potentially serve as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you see yourself in either protagonist and scream at your TV, or simply turn to your other half and say, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an test you can undertake today.
Together is streaming on the streaming service Hulu as of this moment.
