Consider this a test for long-term couples who are fans of scary movies: Sit down with your significant other and stream Together. This 2025 indie hit just made its launch on a streaming platform via Hulu. On the surface, it may seem like standard body horror, but inside Together resides a profound meditation about the ways we decide to love our partners.
An Introductory Film Investigating Relationship Dynamics
Together represents the introductory feature for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, partners that have stayed together for ten years. Married in reality in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a particular energy to their characters, masterfully depicting both the strengths and weaknesses of a committed partnership.
The plot starts when Millie and Tim move from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A commonly used plot device, of course, but that’s mostly where the cliches conclude. Together transforms into as much a psychological exploration of the couple's dynamic as it is a body horror flick.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their country house, a storm hits, and Millie and Tim tumble into an underground cave. After a night spent there and eventually escaping, a supernatural entity starts to affect the couple. This force creates a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying horror experience, weaving in bits of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but never too gross) body horror, and surprisingly comedic dialogue (sometimes during something disturbing). Shanks weaves these elements together expertly and delivers them in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is exclusively the performances of its stars, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the partnership at the film's core. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his failing musical ambitions slowly bubbles to the surface.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and cut off by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve left the city and removed from his network of friends. He fears the idea of utterly sacrificing his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is further exacerbated by the reality he can’t drive and is dependent on Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move in this movie avoids making either of his characters the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie face the type of challenges that are inherent in most partnerships a decade in. Fundamentally, they continue to care for one another. They find humor with each other, offer support, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an inescapable current of uncertainty about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to another person, the allegory does not come across as overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these visceral horror elements present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that single viewers have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for staying single. On the other hand, certain partners having disagreements found that the film ultimately assisted them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could potentially serve as a great barometer of how you think about commitment. Will the ending sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in one of the characters and scream at your TV, or simply look at your other half and say, “I understand that choice”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an test you can embark on right now.
Together is streaming on Hulu now.
