Here's a dare for those in enduring partnerships who appreciate horror films: Sit down with your partner and stream Together. This 2025 indie hit recently had its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. At first glance, it could look like typical physical horror, but within Together lies a intense contemplation about our choices in loving our partners.
A Debut Feature Investigating The Nuances of Love
Together marks the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for over ten years. Having wed in real life in 2017, the actors contribute a unique chemistry to their characters, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a long-term relationship.
The plot starts when Millie and Tim transition from the metropolis to the rural area for her career. A familiar plot device, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the tropes end. Together becomes as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a body horror flick.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their country house, a tempest descends, and the protagonists fall into an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and finally finding a way out, a strange force begins influencing the couple. This force induces a otherworldly bond between them that goes exceeding simple connection.
The whole movie is a methodically building of scares, weaving in moments of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but never too gross) body horror, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes in the middle of something grotesque). Shanks skillfully blends these components expertly and delivers them in a gradually swelling aura of dread.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is solely the two lead actors, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and emotional bond is waning due to a lack of intimacy. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his struggling artistic pursuits inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim feels trapped and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and removed from his support system. He fears the idea of completely losing his personal autonomy in another person. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact he lacks a driver's license and is dependent on Millie for transportation.
Shanks’ smartest move in Together avoids making one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie grapple with the type of challenges that come with most partnerships over a long period. At their core, they have affection for each other. They find humor with each other, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an persistent feeling of questioning about their bond.
Allegory and Meaning
While the otherworldly presence in Together represent these concerns of excessive reliance and fully committing to a partner, the metaphor does not come across as hamfisted or self-important. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a perfect parallel to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the frights and the fights work together in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. Meanwhile, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could act as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the finale plant anxiety and horror, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply glance toward your other half and say, “We could get through that together”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can embark on right now.
Together is available to watch on Hulu as of this moment.
