Consider this a test for long-term couples who appreciate scary movies: Settle in with your partner and stream Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its streaming debut on the Hulu service. Outwardly, it could look like standard body horror, but beneath Together lies a profound meditation about the ways we decide to love each other.
A Debut Feature Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together represents the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, partners that have stayed together for a decade. Married in real life in 2017, the actors contribute a special spark to their roles, skillfully embodying both the strengths and weaknesses of a enduring union.
The narrative commences when the couple relocate from the big city to the country for her career. A commonly used story element, sure, but that’s largely where the conventions cease. Together becomes as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a body horror flick.
A Paranormal Spark
While trekking near their new home, a storm hits, and the two fall into an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and finally finding a way out, a mysterious influence begins influencing the duo. This force induces a otherworldly bond between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The whole movie is a gradually intensifying horror experience, weaving in moments of dreamlike terrors, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes during something horrific). Shanks orchestrates these parts expertly and presents them in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A large part of Together is exclusively the two lead actors, and they masterfully render countless layers to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self and emotional bond is suffering due to a lack of intimacy. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to pursue anything but his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve left the city and removed from his support system. He dreads the idea of utterly sacrificing his sense of self in Millie. This fear is intensified by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
The director's cleverest decision is that he never makes either of his characters the obvious villain.
The couple confront the type of challenges that arise in any relationship after ten years. At their core, they still love each other. They find humor with each other, offer support, and open up at times. But beneath it all, there’s an inescapable undercurrent of doubt about their future together.
Allegory and Meaning
While the otherworldly presence in Together represent these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to a partner, the allegory avoids being hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a brilliant analogue to the relationship narrative. Both the frights and the fights work together in a mutually beneficial way.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s final act, which is best experienced firsthand, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a powerful case for avoiding commitment. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could function as a telling indicator of how you think about commitment. Will the ending plant a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in Tim or Millie and yell at the screen, or simply turn to your significant other and state, “I understand that choice”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an exploration you can undertake at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu now.
