Here's a test for partners in committed relationships who are fans of scary movies: Settle in with your significant other and watch Together. The independent film success of 2025 recently had its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. At first glance, it could look like standard physical horror, but beneath Together resides a profound meditation about how we choose to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Investigating The Nuances of Love
Together represents the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, partners that have remained a couple for over ten years. Having wed in real life in 2017, the actors contribute a particular energy to their characters, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a long-term relationship.
The narrative starts when Tim and Millie transition from the urban environment to the country for Millie’s job. A commonly used story element, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the tropes conclude. Together transforms into as much a examination of mental states of the couple's dynamic as it is a body horror flick.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While walking near their new home, a storm hits, and Millie and Tim tumble into an underground cave. After being trapped overnight there and finally finding a way out, a mysterious influence takes hold of the couple. This force induces a supernatural closeness between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying of scares, interspersing elements of dreamlike terrors, unsettling (but tastefully done) physical transformations, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes during something horrific). Shanks skillfully blends these components seamlessly and presents them in a gradually swelling atmosphere of fear.
Complex Characterizations
A large part of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self 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 failing musical ambitions gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and far away from his network of friends. He is terrified of the notion of completely losing his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is amplified by the circumstance he can’t drive and needs Millie for transportation.
The film's most intelligent aspect in this movie refrains from painting one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters face the sort of issues that arise in long-term unions after ten years. Deep down, they have affection for one another. They find humor with each other, offer support, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an persistent undercurrent of doubt about their future together.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the otherworldly presence in Together act as a metaphor for these anxieties of codependency and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the symbolism does not come across as overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments offer a perfect parallel to the relationship narrative. Both the horror and the drama enhance each other in harmony.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the story's concluding statement about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have understood the narrative as a powerful case for staying single. Meanwhile, some couples who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to resolve their issues.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own interpretation could act as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the finale inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in one of the characters and feel frustration, or simply turn to your significant other and utter, “We could get through that together”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an exploration you can embark on right now.
Together is streaming on the streaming service Hulu as of this moment.
