Consider this a challenge for partners in committed relationships who are fans of the horror genre: Settle in with your significant other and view Together. This 2025 indie hit just made its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. On the surface, it could look like standard physical horror, but inside Together resides a profound meditation about the ways we decide to love each other.
An Introductory Film Investigating Relationship Dynamics
Together is the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for ten years. Having wed in real life in 2017, the actors bring a unique chemistry to their portrayals, skillfully embodying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The narrative starts when Tim and Millie relocate from the metropolis to the country for Millie’s job. A familiar narrative setup, sure, but that’s largely where the conventions cease. Together transforms into as much a psychological exploration of the pair’s relationship as it is a film about physical terror.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While walking near their new home, a storm hits, and the two discover an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and finally finding a way out, a mysterious influence takes hold of the pair. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The whole movie is a slow burn horror experience, blending bits of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but not excessively graphic) physical transformations, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes amidst something grotesque). Shanks orchestrates these parts seamlessly and delivers them in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Complex Characterizations
A significant portion of Together is only the performances of its stars, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the partnership at the film's core. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a emotional and physical gap. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve relocated rural and far away from his support system. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is intensified by the reality he does not operate a vehicle and is dependent on Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move in this movie never makes Tim or Millie the obvious villain.
Tim and Millie grapple with the kind of problems that come with most partnerships a decade in. At their core, they still love one another. They find humor with each other, offer support, and open up at times. But under the surface, there’s an inescapable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these concerns of excessive reliance and giving oneself over to another person, the symbolism does not come across as clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments provide a perfect parallel to the character-driven drama. Both the horror and the drama serve the other symbiotically.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s conclusion, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. It has been said that single viewers have seen the movie as a powerful case for staying single. Conversely, a few pairs experiencing tension found that the film actually helped them make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could act as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the conclusion plant a sense of discomfort and fear, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in one of the characters and scream at your TV, or simply turn to your partner and utter, “I understand that choice”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an test you can undertake at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu now.
