Consider this a challenge for partners in committed relationships who are fans of scary movies: Settle in with your loved one and watch Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its online premiere on Hulu. On the surface, it might appear like standard biological terror, but inside Together resides a intense contemplation about our choices in loving one another.
An Introductory Film Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together is the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for over ten years. Married in real life in 2017, the two stars bring a unique chemistry to their portrayals, masterfully depicting both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The narrative commences when Millie and Tim relocate from the big city to the countryside for Millie’s job. A familiar plot device, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the cliches end. Together becomes as much a examination of mental states of the pair’s relationship as it is a film about physical terror.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While trekking near their new home, a tempest descends, and the two fall into an hole in the earth. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity begins influencing the pair. This force induces a otherworldly bond between them that goes far beyond emotional intimacy.
The entire film is a slow burn horror experience, interspersing moments of fever-dream horrors, unsettling (but never too gross) body horror, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes during something horrific). Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and delivers them in a consistently growing atmosphere of fear.
Complex Characterizations
A great deal of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his failing musical ambitions inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and removed from his support system. He is terrified of the idea of completely losing his individual identity in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact he can’t drive and relies on Millie for mobility.
The film's most intelligent aspect in Together never makes one partner or the other the definite antagonist.
The couple grapple with the kind of problems that come with long-term unions after ten years. Fundamentally, they continue to care for each other. They still laugh together, offer support, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an persistent undercurrent of doubt about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the paranormal elements in Together represent these anxieties of excessive reliance and fully committing to another person, the allegory never feels hamfisted or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the story's concluding statement about unhealthy partnerships. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have interpreted the film as a compelling reason for staying single. Conversely, certain partners experiencing tension found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could function as a telling indicator of how you think about commitment. Will the conclusion inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in Tim or Millie and scream at your TV, or simply glance toward your other half and state, “I’d do that for you”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an experiment you can undertake right now.
Together is available to watch on Hulu at present.
