Here's a challenge for partners in committed relationships who enjoy horror films: Get comfortable with your significant other and stream Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie just made its online premiere via Hulu. Outwardly, it might appear like standard physical horror, but within Together resides a intense contemplation about our choices in loving one another.
A Debut Feature Delving into The Nuances of Love
Together represents the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It stars the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have been together for a decade. United in marriage in actuality in 2017, the two stars contribute a particular energy to their roles, skillfully embodying both the joys and frustrations of a committed partnership.
The story begins when the couple move from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A familiar story element, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the cliches conclude. Together evolves into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the couple's dynamic as it is a film about physical terror.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While trekking near their new home, a storm hits, and Millie and Tim tumble into an hole in the earth. After spending the night there and managing to escape, a strange force takes hold of the couple. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes well past simple connection.
The whole movie is a gradually intensifying horror experience, blending bits of hallucinatory nightmares, unsettling (but tastefully done) body horror, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes during something grotesque). Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and delivers them in a gradually swelling atmosphere of fear.
Layered Performances
A large part of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they skillfully illustrate countless layers to the partnership at the film's core. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his reluctance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career slowly bubbles to the surface.
Conversely, Tim experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve left the city and distant from his network of friends. He dreads the concept of completely losing his individual identity in Millie. This fear is further exacerbated by the reality he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
The film's most intelligent aspect is that he never makes either of his characters the definite antagonist.
Both characters face the sort of issues that are inherent in any relationship a decade in. Fundamentally, they still love each other. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an inescapable current of uncertainty about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together act as a metaphor for these concerns of unhealthy attachment and totally devoting oneself to another person, the symbolism never feels overly obvious or self-important. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the horror and the drama serve the other symbiotically.
A Debated Finale
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that single viewers have seen the movie as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. Meanwhile, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own reaction could potentially serve as a revealing measure of how you think about commitment. Will the finale sow feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you identify in either protagonist and scream at your TV, or simply glance toward your significant other and say, “I understand that choice”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can undertake at this very moment.
Together is available to watch on Hulu now.
