Consider this a challenge for partners in committed relationships who appreciate the horror genre: Settle in with your loved one and stream Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its online premiere via Hulu. Outwardly, it could look like standard biological terror, but beneath Together exists a profound contemplation about how we choose to love each other.
A Debut Feature Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together is the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It showcases the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, partners that have been together for a decade. Having wed in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a unique chemistry to their portrayals, skillfully embodying both the joys and frustrations of a enduring union.
The narrative commences when Millie and Tim relocate from the urban environment to the country for Millie’s job. A commonly used story element, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the cliches end. Together evolves into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Paranormal Spark
While trekking near their country house, a storm hits, and the protagonists tumble into an underground cave. After a night spent there and eventually escaping, a strange force starts to affect the couple. This force creates a otherworldly bond between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The entire film is a methodically building fright fest, weaving in elements of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes amidst something horrific). Michael Shanks skillfully blends these components seamlessly and presents them in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is exclusively the two lead actors, and they masterfully render numerous complexities to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a distance. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his unwillingness to chase only his floundering music career inexorably rises.
In contrast, Tim's character senses confinement and separated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and removed from his network of friends. He fears the notion of totally forfeiting his individual identity in Millie. This fear is further exacerbated by the reality he lacks a driver's license and needs Millie for transportation.
The director's cleverest decision in Together refrains from painting one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Tim and Millie confront the type of challenges that come with long-term unions after ten years. Fundamentally, they have affection for each other. They still laugh together, offer support, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an inescapable feeling of questioning about their future together.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these fears of codependency and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the allegory avoids being clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments offer a brilliant analogue to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal work together in a mutually beneficial way.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s final act, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about unhealthy partnerships. It has been said that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for remaining unattached. Conversely, certain partners having disagreements found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the finale sow anxiety and horror, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in one of the characters and scream at your TV, or simply look at your other half and utter, “We could get through that together”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an exploration you can embark on at this very moment.
Together is available to watch on Hulu's platform now.
