Here's a dare for long-term couples who enjoy scary movies: Get comfortable with your partner and view Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie just made its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. At first glance, it might appear like conventional body horror, but inside Together resides a profound meditation about how we choose to love one another.
An Introductory Film Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together is the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It features actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have remained a couple for ten years. Having wed in real life in 2017, the two stars contribute a unique chemistry to their characters, masterfully depicting both the strengths and weaknesses of a enduring union.
The plot starts when Tim and Millie move from the urban environment to the countryside for her career. A familiar plot device, of course, but that’s largely where the tropes conclude. Together evolves into as much a examination of mental states of the couple's dynamic as it is a body horror flick.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While trekking near their new home, a storm hits, and the two discover an underground cave. After spending the night there and eventually escaping, a supernatural entity starts to affect the pair. This force compels a otherworldly bond between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The entire film is a slow burn fright fest, weaving in bits of dreamlike terrors, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes in the middle of something grotesque). The director orchestrates these parts expertly and delivers them in a slowly mounting aura of dread.
Nuanced Portrayals
A great deal of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they skillfully illustrate countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his unwillingness to chase only his struggling artistic pursuits inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve left the city and distant from his network of friends. He dreads the concept of totally forfeiting his individual identity in Millie. This fear is intensified by the reality he lacks a driver's license and relies on Millie for mobility.
Shanks’ smartest move in this movie refrains from painting one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters confront the kind of problems that come with long-term unions after ten years. Fundamentally, they still love one another. They share moments of joy, comfort one another, and open up at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their bond.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together act as a metaphor for these fears of unhealthy attachment and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the allegory never feels hamfisted or self-important. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments offer a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal work together in a mutually beneficial way.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have understood the narrative as a strong argument for remaining unattached. Meanwhile, certain partners having disagreements found that the film actually helped them make up.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own interpretation could function as a revealing measure of how you view relationships. Will the ending inspire 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 turn to your partner and state, “I’d do that for you”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an exploration you can embark on at this very moment.
Together is streaming on Hulu's platform at present.
