Here's a test for partners in committed relationships who enjoy scary movies: Settle in with your loved one and watch Together. This independent film success of 2025 has now made its online premiere via Hulu. Outwardly, it could look like conventional physical horror, but beneath Together resides a profound contemplation about the ways we decide to love one another.
An Introductory Film Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together marks the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, partners that have remained a couple for a decade. United in marriage in actuality in 2017, Franco and Brie infuse a unique chemistry to their portrayals, masterfully depicting both the strengths and weaknesses of a enduring union.
The plot commences when Millie and Tim relocate from the metropolis to the rural area for Millie’s job. A familiar story element, of course, but that’s mostly where the cliches cease. Together evolves into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their new home, a violent storm occurs, and the two fall into an underground cave. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a strange force takes hold of the couple. This force creates a paranormal intimacy between them that goes well past simple connection.
The complete narrative is a slow burn horror experience, interspersing bits of dreamlike terrors, gross (but tastefully done) body horror, and surprisingly comedic exchanges (sometimes in the middle of something disturbing). Shanks weaves these elements together seamlessly and delivers them in a gradually swelling atmosphere of fear.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they skillfully illustrate manifold depths to the partnership at the film's core. Her self-assurance and emotional bond is suffering due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his failing musical ambitions gradually emerges.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and cut off by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve relocated rural and removed from his support system. He dreads the notion of totally forfeiting his sense of self in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the reality he can’t drive and is dependent on Millie for getting around.
The director's cleverest decision in this movie never makes one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
Both characters confront the type of challenges that are inherent in most partnerships a decade in. At their core, they continue to care for each other. They still laugh together, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together represent these fears of excessive reliance and totally devoting oneself to another person, the allegory does not come across as overly obvious or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a brilliant analogue to the relationship narrative. Both the frights and the fights enhance each other symbiotically.
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. It has been said that those not in relationships have understood the narrative as a powerful case for staying single. Meanwhile, certain partners experiencing tension found that the film ultimately assisted them resolve their issues.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could function as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending plant feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply look at your significant other and say, “I’d do that for you”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can undertake at this very moment.
Together is streaming on Hulu as of this moment.
