Consider this a challenge for long-term couples who are fans of the horror genre: Get comfortable with your partner and stream Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its streaming debut on the Hulu service. On the surface, it might appear like conventional body horror, but beneath Together lies a intense meditation about the ways we decide to love our partners.
An Introductory Film Investigating The Nuances of Love
Together represents the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for over ten years. Having wed in real life in 2017, the two stars contribute a unique chemistry to their portrayals, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a enduring union.
The plot commences when Tim and Millie relocate from the metropolis to the countryside for professional reasons. A somewhat stereotypical plot device, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the tropes end. Together transforms into as much a psychological exploration of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their country house, a storm hits, and the protagonists tumble into an hole in the earth. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a strange force begins influencing the duo. This force creates a supernatural closeness between them that goes far beyond emotional intimacy.
The complete narrative is a methodically building of scares, weaving in bits of dreamlike terrors, unsettling (but never too gross) body horror, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes amidst something disturbing). The director skillfully blends these components expertly and wraps them up in a gradually swelling sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A significant portion of Together is only Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self and emotional bond is deteriorating due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to pursue anything but his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
In contrast, Tim's character experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and far away from his network of friends. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his sense of self in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the circumstance he does not operate a vehicle and needs Millie for transportation.
The director's cleverest decision in Together never makes either of his characters the clear bad guy.
Both characters face the kind of problems that arise in long-term unions over a long period. At their core, they have affection for each other. They share moments of joy, offer support, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an persistent current of uncertainty about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and totally devoting oneself to another person, the allegory does not come across as overly obvious or self-important. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the horror and the drama serve the other in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which won’t be spoiled here, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Reports indicate that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a strong argument for staying single. Meanwhile, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could act as a great barometer of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you recognize your own traits in Tim or Millie and feel frustration, or simply look at your partner and utter, “I understand that choice”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can experience at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on Hulu now.
