Here's a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who appreciate scary movies: Get comfortable with your loved one and watch Together. This independent film success of 2025 has now made its online premiere on the Hulu service. On the surface, it could look like standard body horror, but beneath Together exists a profound contemplation about the ways we decide to love each other.
A Directorial Debut Exploring The Nuances of Love
Together represents the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, partners that have stayed together for ten years. Married in real life in 2017, the actors bring a special spark to their roles, expertly portraying both the good and bad of a long-term relationship.
The story starts when Tim and Millie move from the metropolis to the rural area for her career. A somewhat stereotypical narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s largely where the cliches cease. Together transforms into as much a psychological exploration of the partnership as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While hiking near their country house, a tempest descends, and the two tumble into an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and eventually escaping, a strange force starts to affect the duo. This force creates a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The whole movie is a slow burn fright fest, blending moments of fever-dream horrors, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and authentically humorous dialogue (sometimes during something grotesque). Michael Shanks orchestrates these parts expertly and wraps them up in a gradually swelling aura of dread.
Nuanced Portrayals
A great deal of Together is exclusively the performances of its stars, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Millie’s confidence and emotional bond is waning due to a lack of intimacy. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his failing musical ambitions slowly bubbles to the surface.
In contrast, Tim's character experiences isolation and cut off by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve moved to the country and far away from his support system. He dreads the concept of utterly sacrificing his sense of self in Millie. This fear is amplified by the circumstance he can’t drive and needs Millie for getting around.
The director's cleverest decision in this movie never makes one partner or the other the obvious villain.
Both characters confront the type of challenges that are inherent in most partnerships a decade in. Fundamentally, they have affection for each other. They still laugh together, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and fully committing to a partner, the metaphor never feels overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments offer a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which remains unspoiled, has created disagreement on the story's concluding statement about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that single viewers have interpreted the film as a powerful case for staying single. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ultimately assisted them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own interpretation could function as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply look at your partner and state, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can embark on at this very moment.
Together is available to watch on Hulu's platform at present.
