We present a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who are fans of scary movies: Sit down with your significant other and view Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its online premiere via Hulu. At first glance, it could look like standard biological terror, but within Together exists a profound examination about how we choose to love our partners.
An Introductory Film Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together is the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It stars actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for a decade. Having wed in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a particular energy to their characters, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a enduring union.
The story starts when the couple transition from the big city to the rural area for her career. A familiar story element, admittedly, but that’s largely where the tropes conclude. Together transforms into as much a psychological exploration of the pair’s relationship as it is a body horror flick.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their country house, a violent storm occurs, and the protagonists tumble into an underground cave. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a strange force starts to affect the couple. This force compels a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond simple connection.
The complete narrative is a gradually intensifying of scares, blending elements of fever-dream horrors, disturbing (but never too gross) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes during something horrific). Shanks skillfully blends these components neatly and presents them in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the partnership at the film's core. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a lack of intimacy. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his reluctance to chase only his struggling artistic pursuits inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve relocated rural and removed from his support system. He dreads the concept of utterly sacrificing his sense of self in Millie. This fear is intensified by the fact he can’t drive and needs Millie for getting around.
The director's cleverest decision in this movie avoids making one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
Both characters confront the type of challenges that come with most partnerships over a long period. Fundamentally, they have affection for each other. They find humor with each other, provide solace, and are vulnerable at times. But under the surface, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their bond.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the supernatural forces in Together act as a metaphor for these fears of unhealthy attachment and fully committing to a partner, the metaphor does not come across as clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the frights and the fights work together in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the story's concluding statement about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that single viewers have seen the movie as a powerful case for remaining unattached. Conversely, some couples having disagreements found that the film ultimately assisted them make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could potentially serve as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the finale plant anxiety and horror, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply turn to your other half and utter, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an test you can experience at this very moment.
Together is streaming on Hulu's platform now.
