We present a dare for those in enduring partnerships who enjoy the horror genre: Sit down with your significant other and watch Together. This 2025 indie hit just made its streaming debut on Hulu. On the surface, it could look like standard biological terror, but inside Together exists a intense meditation about how we choose to love our partners.
A Directorial Debut Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together is the introductory feature for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for a decade. Having wed in actuality in 2017, the two stars contribute a unique chemistry to their characters, masterfully depicting both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The story starts when Tim and Millie move from the urban environment to the rural area for Millie’s job. A familiar narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the conventions cease. Together evolves into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the partnership as it is a body horror flick.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While walking near their country house, a violent storm occurs, and the two fall into an hole in the earth. After a night spent there and eventually escaping, a mysterious influence takes hold of the duo. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying fright fest, interspersing elements of dreamlike terrors, unsettling (but never too gross) body horror, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes during something grotesque). Shanks orchestrates these parts seamlessly and delivers them in a consistently growing sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A significant portion of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the partnership at the film's core. Millie’s confidence and emotional bond is deteriorating due to a lack of intimacy. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his hesitance to pursue anything but his struggling artistic pursuits inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim experiences isolation and separated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve left the city and removed from his support system. He fears the concept of utterly sacrificing his sense of self in another person. This fear is intensified by the circumstance he can’t drive and needs Millie for transportation.
The film's most intelligent aspect in Together avoids making Tim or Millie the clear bad guy.
Tim and Millie confront the type of challenges that come with long-term unions over a long period. At their core, they continue to care for one another. They share moments of joy, comfort one another, and open up at times. But beneath it all, there’s an unavoidable current of uncertainty about their relationship.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the supernatural forces in Together act as a metaphor for these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to another person, the allegory avoids being clumsy or self-important. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a brilliant analogue to the relationship narrative. Both the frights and the fights work together in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s ending, which remains unspoiled, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about unhealthy partnerships. It has been said that those not in relationships have interpreted the film as a compelling reason for remaining unattached. Conversely, some couples who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them make up.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own interpretation could act as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a positive outlook on love? Will you identify in Tim or Millie and feel frustration, or simply turn to your significant other and say, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can undertake today.
Together is streaming on Hulu as of this moment.
