Consider this a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who are fans of the horror genre: Get comfortable with your partner and watch Together. The 2025 indie hit recently had its streaming debut via Hulu. Outwardly, it could look like typical physical horror, but inside Together lies a deep contemplation about how we choose to love each other.
An Introductory Film Delving into Relationship Dynamics
Together represents the introductory feature for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It showcases actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have remained a couple for a decade. Married in real life in 2017, the actors infuse a particular energy to their portrayals, masterfully depicting both the good and bad of a long-term relationship.
The narrative commences when the couple relocate from the urban environment to the rural area for her career. A familiar narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the conventions conclude. Together becomes as much a psychological exploration of the partnership as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their rural residence, a violent storm occurs, and the protagonists fall into an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity starts to affect the pair. This force creates a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying horror experience, weaving in bits of dreamlike terrors, gross (but tastefully done) physical transformations, and authentically humorous dialogue (sometimes amidst something grotesque). The director weaves these elements together expertly and presents them in a consistently growing sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A great deal of Together is solely Brie and Franco, and they masterfully render numerous complexities to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a lack of intimacy. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his hesitance to pursue anything but his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
In contrast, Tim's character experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve relocated rural and distant from his network of friends. He is terrified of the concept of completely losing his individual identity in his partner. This fear is intensified by the reality he lacks a driver's license and needs Millie for transportation.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he refrains from painting either of his characters the obvious villain.
The couple grapple with the kind of problems that arise in any relationship after ten years. Deep down, they have affection for each other. They still laugh together, comfort one another, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an inescapable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the otherworldly presence in Together represent these concerns of excessive reliance and fully committing to another person, the allegory avoids being clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the frights and the fights serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s final act, which remains unspoiled, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a strong argument for remaining unattached. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could act as a great barometer of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending plant feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you recognize your own traits in either protagonist and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your other half and state, “We could get through that together”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an exploration you can undertake right now.
Together is available to watch on the streaming service Hulu at present.
