Consider this a dare for long-term couples who enjoy the horror genre: Settle in with your partner and view Together. The 2025 indie hit has now made its online premiere on Hulu. Outwardly, it could look like conventional body horror, but inside Together resides a deep contemplation about how we choose to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Delving into The Nuances of Love
Together is the introductory feature for director Michael Shanks. It showcases actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for over ten years. United in marriage in real life in 2017, the actors infuse a special spark to their roles, masterfully depicting both the joys and frustrations of a enduring union.
The story starts when Millie and Tim relocate from the big city to the country for her career. A commonly used narrative setup, of course, but that’s primarily where the conventions cease. Together becomes as much a psychological exploration of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Paranormal Spark
While walking near their country house, a storm hits, and Millie and Tim discover an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity takes hold of the couple. This force creates a supernatural closeness between them that goes well past emotional intimacy.
The entire film is a methodically building horror experience, interspersing moments of hallucinatory nightmares, gross (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes amidst something horrific). The director weaves these elements together neatly and presents them in a gradually swelling sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A large part of Together is solely the two lead actors, and they masterfully render countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his floundering music career inexorably rises.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and removed from his support system. He is terrified of the notion of utterly sacrificing his sense of self in his partner. This fear is amplified by the reality he can’t drive and needs Millie for transportation.
Shanks’ smartest move in this movie never makes either of his characters the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie confront the sort of issues that arise in most partnerships a decade in. Fundamentally, they have affection for one another. They share moments of joy, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent current of uncertainty about their bond.
Allegory and Meaning
While the paranormal elements in Together act as a metaphor for these concerns of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to a partner, the metaphor never feels hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Debated Finale
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that single viewers have seen the movie as a strong argument for staying single. Conversely, some couples experiencing tension found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the finale plant a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in either protagonist and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your significant other and state, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can undertake today.
Together is streaming on Hulu now.
