Here's a dare for those in enduring partnerships who are fans of the horror genre: Get comfortable with your loved one and view Together. The 2025 indie hit has now made its launch on a streaming platform on the Hulu service. At first glance, it could look like standard body horror, but beneath Together exists a profound contemplation about how we choose to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together represents the introductory feature for director Michael Shanks. It showcases actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have been together for over ten years. Having wed in real life in 2017, the actors bring a unique chemistry to their characters, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a enduring union.
The story starts when the couple relocate from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A familiar plot device, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the cliches cease. Together becomes as much a psychological exploration of the partnership as it is a body horror flick.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their country house, a storm hits, and Millie and Tim tumble into an hole in the earth. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity starts to affect the pair. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond emotional intimacy.
The whole movie is a gradually intensifying fright fest, interspersing moments of dreamlike terrors, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny dialogue (sometimes during something disturbing). Michael Shanks skillfully blends these components seamlessly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting aura of dread.
Complex Characterizations
A significant portion of Together is solely the performances of its stars, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie’s confidence and sense of connection is waning due to a distance. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his hesitance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career slowly bubbles to the surface.
In contrast, Tim's character senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve left the city and removed from his support system. He is terrified of the concept of completely losing his sense of self in another person. This fear is intensified by the reality he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
The director's cleverest decision in Together refrains from painting either of his characters the definite antagonist.
Both characters grapple with the sort of issues that come with most partnerships after ten years. Fundamentally, they still love one another. They share moments of joy, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent current of uncertainty about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the paranormal elements in Together symbolize these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to another person, the allegory does not come across as hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a ideal counterpart to the character-driven drama. Both the horror and the drama work together in harmony.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s final act, which remains unspoiled, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about unhealthy partnerships. Accounts suggest that single viewers have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for remaining unattached. On the other hand, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ultimately assisted them resolve their issues.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own response could act as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending plant a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in one of the characters and feel frustration, or simply look at your partner and say, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can experience at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform now.
