Here's a dare for those in enduring partnerships who are fans of the horror genre: Get comfortable with your significant other and watch Together. This critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its online premiere on the Hulu service. At first glance, it may seem like standard physical horror, but inside Together lies a intense meditation about how we choose to love one another.
A Directorial Debut Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together marks the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It features the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for over ten years. Married in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a particular energy to their roles, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a long-term relationship.
The narrative begins when Millie and Tim relocate from the urban environment to the rural area for Millie’s job. A commonly used plot device, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the conventions conclude. Together becomes as much a psychological exploration of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their new home, a tempest descends, and Millie and Tim discover an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and finally finding a way out, a strange force takes hold of the pair. This force compels a otherworldly bond between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The whole movie is a methodically building horror experience, interspersing elements of dreamlike terrors, gross (but not excessively graphic) physical transformations, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes amidst something horrific). Michael Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and presents them in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is only Brie and Franco, and they skillfully illustrate numerous complexities to the partnership at the film's core. Millie’s confidence and sense of connection is waning due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his reluctance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim experiences isolation and separated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve relocated rural and distant from his support system. He is terrified of the idea of completely losing his individual identity in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact he lacks a driver's license and needs Millie for transportation.
The director's cleverest decision in Together refrains from painting one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters confront the type of challenges that arise in most partnerships after ten years. At their core, they have affection for each other. They find humor with each other, provide solace, and are vulnerable at times. But beneath it all, there’s an unavoidable current of uncertainty about their future together.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the paranormal elements in Together act as a metaphor for these concerns of excessive reliance and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the symbolism avoids being overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments present a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the horror and the drama serve the other symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which is best experienced firsthand, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have seen the movie as a powerful case for avoiding commitment. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could function as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the conclusion sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in either protagonist and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your partner and state, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an exploration you can experience at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform now.
