Here's a challenge for partners in committed relationships who are fans of the horror genre: Get comfortable with your loved one and view Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its online premiere on the Hulu service. At first glance, it could look like standard body horror, but within Together exists a deep contemplation about how we choose to love each other.
A Debut Feature Investigating The Nuances of Love
Together is the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, partners that have been together for over ten years. Married in reality in 2017, the actors bring a unique chemistry to their portrayals, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a enduring union.
The plot begins when Tim and Millie relocate from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A familiar story element, sure, but that’s largely where the cliches end. Together transforms into as much a examination of mental states of the partnership as it is a film about physical terror.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While hiking near their country house, a tempest descends, and Millie and Tim discover an subterranean cavern. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a strange force begins influencing the pair. This force creates a paranormal intimacy between them that goes well past typical partnership.
The complete narrative is a slow burn fright fest, weaving in elements of hallucinatory nightmares, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes in the middle of something horrific). Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A great deal of Together is exclusively the performances of its stars, and they skillfully illustrate countless layers to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his floundering music career slowly bubbles to the surface.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve moved to the country and far away from his social circle. He dreads the idea of completely losing his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact he can’t drive and relies on Millie for mobility.
Shanks’ smartest move in this movie never makes Tim or Millie the definite antagonist.
Tim and Millie grapple with the sort of issues that come with most partnerships a decade in. At their core, they have affection for each other. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and open up at times. But beneath it all, there’s an inescapable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these anxieties of excessive reliance and giving oneself over to a partner, the allegory never feels hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a brilliant analogue 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 sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about unhealthy partnerships. It has been said that unattached audience members have seen the movie as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. On the other hand, some couples experiencing tension found that the film ended up guiding them to resolve their issues.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own interpretation could function as a revealing measure of how you think about commitment. Will the conclusion inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in Tim or Millie and feel frustration, or simply look at your partner and utter, “I’d do that for you”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an test you can undertake right now.
Together is currently playing on Hulu now.
