Here's a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who appreciate horror films: Get comfortable with your loved one and watch Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. At first glance, it may seem like standard physical horror, but within Together lies a intense contemplation about the ways we decide to love our partners.
A Directorial Debut Investigating The Nuances of Love
Together marks the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, partners that have remained a couple for a decade. Married in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a special spark to their characters, skillfully embodying both the joys and frustrations of a enduring union.
The plot commences when Tim and Millie move from the big city to the countryside for Millie’s job. A somewhat stereotypical story element, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the tropes cease. Together evolves into as much a examination of mental states of the pair’s relationship as it is a film about physical terror.
A Paranormal Spark
While trekking near their new home, a tempest descends, and the two tumble into an hole in the earth. After a night spent there and finally finding a way out, a mysterious influence takes hold of the pair. This force creates a supernatural closeness between them that goes well past simple connection.
The entire film is a slow burn of scares, interspersing elements of hallucinatory nightmares, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes during something horrific). Shanks skillfully blends these components neatly and wraps them up in a gradually swelling aura of dread.
Layered Performances
A significant portion of Together is only the performances of its stars, and they masterfully render countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and emotional bond is waning due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to pursue anything but his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
Tim, on the other hand senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve moved to the country and distant from his network of friends. He dreads the notion of totally forfeiting his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is intensified by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
The film's most intelligent aspect in Together never makes one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
The couple grapple with the type of challenges that arise in any relationship after ten years. Fundamentally, they still love each other. They find humor with each other, offer support, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an persistent current of uncertainty about their bond.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and fully committing to a partner, the metaphor avoids being clumsy or self-important. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a brilliant analogue to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have interpreted the film as a powerful case for staying single. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a revealing measure of how you view relationships. Will the ending inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in one of the characters and scream at your TV, or simply glance toward your significant other and utter, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can experience right now.
Together is streaming on Hulu's platform now.
