Consider this a dare for long-term couples who appreciate the horror genre: Get comfortable with your significant other and stream Together. This 2025 indie hit recently had its online premiere on Hulu. On the surface, it may seem like standard biological terror, but within Together lies a deep contemplation about our choices in loving one another.
An Introductory Film Investigating Relationship Dynamics
Together marks the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, partners that have remained a couple for over ten years. Having wed in reality in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a particular energy to their characters, expertly portraying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The plot starts when Millie and Tim transition from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A familiar narrative setup, of course, but that’s mostly where the conventions conclude. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While walking near their new home, a violent storm occurs, and Millie and Tim tumble into an subterranean cavern. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a strange force begins influencing the pair. This force induces a supernatural closeness between them that goes well past typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying fright fest, weaving in moments of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes during something horrific). The director orchestrates these parts seamlessly and delivers them in a gradually swelling sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A large part of Together is exclusively the two lead actors, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the partnership at the film's core. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his floundering music career slowly bubbles to the surface.
In contrast, Tim's character senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve left the city and removed from his social circle. He fears the concept of utterly sacrificing his individual identity in another person. This fear is further exacerbated by the circumstance he lacks a driver's license and relies on Millie for getting around.
The film's most intelligent aspect in this movie never makes Tim or Millie the obvious villain.
Both characters face the type of challenges that are inherent in long-term unions a decade in. Fundamentally, they still love one another. They still laugh together, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to another person, the allegory never feels hamfisted or self-important. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other symbiotically.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about unhealthy partnerships. Accounts suggest that single viewers have seen the movie as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. Conversely, certain partners having disagreements found that the film ended up guiding them to resolve their issues.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could act as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the finale sow feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your partner and utter, “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 now.
