We present a challenge for partners in committed relationships who are fans of scary movies: Settle in with your partner and watch Together. The 2025 indie hit has now made its streaming debut on the Hulu service. At first glance, it might appear like conventional body horror, but within Together lies a deep meditation about the ways we decide to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Exploring Relationship Dynamics
Together marks the introductory feature for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, a pair who are not married that have been together for over ten years. United in marriage in actuality in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a particular energy to their characters, skillfully embodying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The plot commences when Millie and Tim transition from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A familiar plot device, admittedly, but that’s largely where the tropes conclude. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a film about physical terror.
A Paranormal Spark
While walking near their new home, a storm hits, and the two fall into an underground cave. After spending the night there and finally finding a way out, a supernatural entity begins influencing the couple. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The complete narrative is a slow burn horror experience, interspersing moments of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny dialogue (sometimes during something grotesque). Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Layered Performances
A large part of Together is only the two lead actors, and they skillfully illustrate numerous complexities to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to pursue anything but his floundering music career slowly bubbles to the surface.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve relocated rural and removed from his network of friends. He dreads the idea of totally forfeiting his sense of self in his partner. This fear is intensified by the reality he can’t drive and is dependent on Millie for mobility.
The director's cleverest decision in Together avoids making either of his characters the clear bad guy.
The couple face the type of challenges that are inherent in most partnerships a decade in. Deep down, 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 current of uncertainty about their future together.
Allegory and Meaning
While the otherworldly presence in Together act as a metaphor for these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to a partner, the allegory does not come across as clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a perfect parallel to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Debated Finale
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has left audiences divided on the film’s ultimate message about unhealthy partnerships. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a powerful case for avoiding commitment. On the other hand, some couples who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own interpretation 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 recognize your own traits in one of the characters and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your significant other and say, “I understand that choice”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can embark on today.
Together is available to watch on the streaming service Hulu at present.
