Here's a challenge for long-term couples who appreciate scary movies: Get comfortable with your partner and watch Together. This independent film success of 2025 just made its launch on a streaming platform on the Hulu service. At first glance, it might appear like standard physical horror, but inside Together resides a profound contemplation about how we choose to love each other.
A Debut Feature Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together marks the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks. It stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for over ten years. United in marriage in real life in 2017, the actors infuse a unique chemistry to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The story starts when Millie and Tim transition from the urban environment to the country for Millie’s job. A familiar plot device, of course, but that’s primarily where the cliches conclude. Together becomes 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 walking near their new home, a tempest descends, and the protagonists tumble into an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and finally finding a way out, a strange force begins influencing the pair. This force creates a otherworldly bond between them that goes well past typical partnership.
The entire film is a gradually intensifying fright fest, interspersing elements of fever-dream horrors, disturbing (but never too gross) body horror, and authentically humorous exchanges (sometimes during something disturbing). Michael Shanks orchestrates these parts seamlessly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
Layered Performances
A great deal of Together is solely Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a distance. Her subconscious resentment of Tim for his hesitance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve left the city and removed from his network of friends. He is terrified of the notion of utterly sacrificing his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is intensified by the fact he can’t drive and is dependent on Millie for getting around.
The film's most intelligent aspect in Together never makes one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
Both characters face the sort of issues that come with most partnerships after ten years. Fundamentally, they continue to care for each other. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and share intimately at times. But beneath it all, there’s an persistent feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together act as a metaphor for these concerns of excessive reliance and totally devoting oneself to another person, the metaphor never feels overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these visceral horror elements offer a brilliant analogue to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the horror and the drama work together in a mutually beneficial way.
A Debated Finale
Together’s final act, which remains unspoiled, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have seen the movie as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. Conversely, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ultimately assisted them make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could act as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the conclusion sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply glance toward your significant other and state, “I understand that choice”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can embark on at this very moment.
Together is streaming on Hulu's platform as of this moment.
