Here's a test for partners in committed relationships who enjoy the horror genre: Sit down with your loved one and view Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie just made its launch on a streaming platform via Hulu. At first glance, it could look like typical body horror, but within Together lies a profound contemplation about our choices in loving each other.
A Debut Feature Exploring The Nuances of Love
Together is the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Tim and Millie, partners that have been together for over ten years. Married in real life in 2017, the two stars bring a particular energy to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a long-term relationship.
The narrative begins when Tim and Millie move from the urban environment to the countryside for her career. A familiar story element, of course, but that’s largely where the cliches cease. 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 hiking near their new home, a tempest descends, and Millie and Tim tumble into an underground cave. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a mysterious influence starts to affect the pair. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding simple connection.
The entire film is a methodically building fright fest, weaving in bits of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but tastefully done) body horror, and genuinely funny dialogue (sometimes during something grotesque). Shanks weaves these elements together expertly and presents them in a gradually swelling atmosphere of fear.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is solely Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to pursue anything but his struggling artistic pursuits inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve left the city and distant from his support system. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is amplified by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
The director's cleverest decision is that he never makes one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
The couple confront the kind of problems that are inherent in any relationship after ten years. At their core, they still love one another. They find humor with each other, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the paranormal elements in Together represent these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to another person, the metaphor never feels hamfisted or heavy-handed. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments present a brilliant analogue to the character-driven drama. Both the frights and the fights serve the other symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s final act, which remains unspoiled, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. It has been said that single viewers have interpreted the film as a strong argument for staying single. Meanwhile, certain partners experiencing tension found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own interpretation could potentially serve as a revealing measure of how you view relationships. Will the conclusion inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in Tim or Millie and scream at your TV, or simply look at your significant other and say, “I understand that choice”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an test you can undertake today.
Together is streaming on the streaming service Hulu as of this moment.
