Here's a test for those in enduring partnerships who appreciate horror films: Sit down with your partner and watch Together. This 2025 indie hit just made its streaming debut on the Hulu service. On the surface, it could look like typical physical horror, but beneath Together lies a deep examination about the ways we decide to love each other.
An Introductory Film Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together represents the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have been together for ten years. Married in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a unique chemistry to their characters, masterfully depicting both the joys and frustrations of a committed partnership.
The story starts when the couple relocate from the big city to the country for Millie’s job. A commonly used story element, sure, 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 hiking near their rural residence, a violent storm occurs, and the protagonists fall into an subterranean cavern. After spending the night there and eventually escaping, a mysterious influence takes hold of the pair. This force compels a otherworldly bond between them that goes well past typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying of scares, blending moments of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but never too gross) physical transformations, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes amidst something horrific). Michael Shanks weaves these elements together seamlessly and delivers them in a gradually swelling atmosphere of fear.
Complex Characterizations
A significant portion of Together is solely the performances of its stars, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a emotional and physical gap. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his struggling artistic pursuits gradually emerges.
Tim, on the other hand feels trapped and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve left the city and far away from his support system. He fears the notion of completely losing his personal autonomy in another person. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact he lacks a driver's license and needs Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move in this movie avoids making Tim or Millie the clear bad guy.
Both characters face the sort of issues that come with any relationship after ten years. At their core, they still love one another. They still laugh together, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to another person, the allegory avoids being overly obvious or self-important. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments provide a brilliant analogue to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which remains unspoiled, has left audiences divided on the story's concluding statement about enmeshed dynamics. It has been said that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for remaining unattached. Conversely, a few pairs having disagreements found that the film actually helped them make up.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own reaction could function as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion sow anxiety and horror, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in either protagonist and scream at your TV, or simply turn to your significant other and say, “I’d do that for you”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can embark on right now.
Together is available to watch on Hulu at present.
