Consider this a dare for partners in committed relationships who enjoy scary movies: Get comfortable with your partner and view Together. This independent film success of 2025 recently had its streaming debut on Hulu. At first glance, it could look like standard body horror, but within Together lies a profound contemplation about our choices in loving one another.
A Directorial Debut Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together represents the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a couple named Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for over ten years. Having wed in reality in 2017, Franco and Brie bring a special spark to their portrayals, masterfully depicting both the strengths and weaknesses of a enduring union.
The narrative starts when Millie and Tim transition from the big city to the country for professional reasons. A familiar story element, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the conventions end. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their rural residence, a tempest descends, and the two fall into an subterranean cavern. After being trapped overnight there and finally finding a way out, a strange force starts to affect the duo. This force compels a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding typical partnership.
The entire film is a methodically building horror experience, blending moments of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes amidst something disturbing). Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and presents them in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Nuanced Portrayals
A great deal of Together is only the two lead actors, and they deftly portray manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Millie’s confidence and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a lack of intimacy. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his struggling artistic pursuits slowly bubbles to the surface.
In contrast, Tim's character senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve relocated rural and distant from his network of friends. He fears the notion of utterly sacrificing his individual identity in Millie. This fear is amplified by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he never makes Tim or Millie the definite antagonist.
Both characters grapple with the kind of problems that come with most partnerships over a long period. Fundamentally, they continue to care for each other. They still laugh together, offer support, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the paranormal elements in Together symbolize these concerns of excessive reliance and fully committing to a partner, the metaphor does not come across as hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments provide a perfect parallel to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the frights and the fights work together symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which is best experienced firsthand, has left audiences divided on the story's concluding statement about codependent relationships. It has been said that single viewers have seen the movie as a strong argument for staying single. Conversely, a few pairs experiencing tension found that the film ended up guiding them to resolve their issues.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own response could function as a great barometer of how you perceive partnership. Will the finale inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a positive outlook on love? Will you identify in either protagonist and yell at the screen, or simply turn to your other half and utter, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can experience right now.
Together is currently playing on Hulu now.
