Here's a challenge for partners in committed relationships who enjoy scary movies: Settle in with your partner and stream Together. This independent film success of 2025 has now made its launch on a streaming platform on Hulu. On the surface, it could look like typical body horror, but inside Together lies a deep examination about the ways we decide to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together marks the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks. It features the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have been together for ten years. Married in reality in 2017, the actors bring a particular energy to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The plot commences when the couple transition from the metropolis to the countryside for Millie’s job. A familiar narrative setup, sure, but that’s largely where the tropes conclude. Together evolves into as much a psychological exploration of the pair’s relationship as it is a body horror flick.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While walking near their rural residence, a violent storm occurs, and the two fall into an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and finally finding a way out, a supernatural entity starts to affect the duo. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes well past simple connection.
The complete narrative is a slow burn horror experience, blending moments of hallucinatory nightmares, gross (but tastefully done) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes during something horrific). The director skillfully blends these components 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 manifold depths to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie’s confidence and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his failing musical ambitions gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim feels trapped and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and removed from his support system. He fears the idea of completely losing his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is further exacerbated by the circumstance he can’t drive and needs Millie for transportation.
The film's most intelligent aspect in this movie avoids making one partner or the other the obvious villain.
The couple face the type of challenges that arise in long-term unions after ten years. At their core, they have affection for one another. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But below this facade, there’s an persistent undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these concerns of unhealthy attachment and giving oneself over to a partner, the symbolism does not come across as overly obvious or pretentious. Instead, these visceral horror elements offer a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the supernatural and the personal work together symbiotically.
A Debated Finale
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a powerful case for remaining unattached. Meanwhile, some couples experiencing tension found that the film ended up guiding them to resolve their issues.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own interpretation could act as a revealing measure of how you think about commitment. Will the ending sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you see yourself in one of the characters and scream at your TV, or simply look at your significant other and say, “I understand that choice”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an exploration you can experience today.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform as of this moment.
