Consider this a challenge for long-term couples who are fans of the horror genre: Sit down with your loved one and stream Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. On the surface, it may seem like conventional physical horror, but inside Together lies a intense contemplation about the ways we decide to love each other.
A Directorial Debut Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together is the introductory feature for director Michael Shanks. It features Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, partners that have stayed together for a decade. Married in actuality in 2017, Franco and Brie bring a special spark to their roles, expertly portraying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The narrative starts when Tim and Millie move from the big city to the countryside for professional reasons. A somewhat stereotypical narrative setup, sure, but that’s largely where the cliches conclude. 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 trekking near their rural residence, a tempest descends, and the protagonists discover an hole in the earth. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity takes hold of the pair. This force induces a supernatural closeness between them that goes far beyond simple connection.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying fright fest, blending elements of hallucinatory nightmares, gross (but tastefully done) physical transformations, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes in the middle of something grotesque). Michael Shanks skillfully blends these components neatly and delivers them in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Complex Characterizations
A significant portion of Together is only Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Her self-assurance and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his failing musical ambitions slowly bubbles to the surface.
Tim, on the other hand senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve relocated rural and distant from his support system. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his sense of self in Millie. This fear is intensified by the circumstance he can’t drive and needs Millie for getting around.
The director's cleverest decision is that he never makes Tim or Millie the obvious villain.
Both characters grapple with the kind of problems that come with most partnerships a decade in. At their core, they continue to care for one another. They still laugh together, offer support, and open up at times. But beneath it all, there’s an inescapable undercurrent of doubt about their future together.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these anxieties of excessive reliance and giving oneself over to a partner, the allegory does not come across as overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a ideal counterpart to the character-driven drama. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Debated Finale
Together’s ending, which is best experienced firsthand, has left audiences divided on the story's concluding statement about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for staying single. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could function as a revealing measure of how you view relationships. Will the finale sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your partner and state, “We could get through that together”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can undertake at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform as of this moment.
