Consider this a dare for partners in committed relationships who enjoy the horror genre: Get comfortable with your loved one and view Together. The independent film success of 2025 has now made its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. At first glance, it could look like standard body horror, but within Together lies a deep contemplation about our choices in loving one another.
An Introductory Film Investigating The Nuances of Love
Together is the introductory feature for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for a decade. Married in actuality in 2017, the actors bring a special spark to their characters, expertly portraying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The narrative begins when Millie and Tim relocate from the big city to the country for professional reasons. A commonly used narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the conventions cease. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the couple's dynamic as it is a body horror flick.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While trekking near their new home, a tempest descends, and the protagonists tumble into an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity starts to affect the couple. This force compels a otherworldly bond between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The whole movie is a slow burn of scares, interspersing bits of hallucinatory nightmares, disturbing (but never too gross) body horror, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes amidst something horrific). Shanks orchestrates these parts expertly and wraps them up in a consistently growing sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A great deal of Together is exclusively the performances of its stars, and they skillfully illustrate manifold depths to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim feels trapped and separated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve left the city and far away from his network of friends. He dreads the idea of totally forfeiting his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is amplified by the fact he can’t drive and needs Millie for getting around.
The film's most intelligent aspect is that he avoids making one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Tim and Millie grapple with the sort of issues that are inherent in any relationship a decade in. Fundamentally, they have affection for one another. They still laugh together, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and fully committing to a partner, the allegory avoids being hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the horror and the drama serve the other in harmony.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about enmeshed dynamics. Reports indicate that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a strong argument for avoiding commitment. Conversely, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could function as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending plant anxiety and horror, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in either protagonist and scream at your TV, or simply look at your significant other and say, “I’d do that for you”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can embark on today.
Together is available to watch on Hulu as of this moment.
