Here's a test for those in enduring partnerships who are fans of scary movies: Settle in with your partner and stream Together. This 2025 indie hit has now made its online premiere on the Hulu service. Outwardly, it might appear like typical body horror, but beneath Together exists a profound examination about the ways we decide to love one another.
An Introductory Film Exploring 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 Millie and Tim, partners that have stayed together for a decade. United in marriage in real life in 2017, the actors contribute a special spark to their roles, masterfully depicting both the joys and frustrations of a committed partnership.
The narrative begins when Tim and Millie move from the metropolis to the rural area for professional reasons. A familiar plot device, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the tropes conclude. Together becomes as much a examination of mental states of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While trekking near their rural residence, a tempest descends, and Millie and Tim fall into an subterranean cavern. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a strange force begins influencing the duo. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The entire film is a slow burn of scares, weaving in elements of dreamlike terrors, gross (but tastefully done) biological grotesqueries, and surprisingly comedic exchanges (sometimes during something disturbing). Shanks weaves these elements together neatly and presents them in a consistently growing sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A great deal of Together is solely the two lead actors, and they masterfully render countless layers to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self and emotional bond is deteriorating due to a emotional and physical gap. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his hesitance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career inexorably rises.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve moved to the country and removed from his network of friends. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is amplified by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he never makes one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters confront the sort of issues that are inherent in most partnerships after ten years. At their core, they have affection for each other. They find humor with each other, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these concerns of excessive reliance and fully committing to a partner, the allegory never feels clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a perfect parallel to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal work together in harmony.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have understood the narrative as a strong argument for staying single. Meanwhile, a few pairs having disagreements found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own response could function as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the finale plant anxiety and horror, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your other half and state, “I understand that choice”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an exploration you can undertake at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform at present.
