Here's a dare for long-term couples who appreciate horror films: Get comfortable with your significant other and stream Together. This independent film success of 2025 just made its online premiere on the Hulu service. On the surface, it might appear like conventional body horror, but inside Together resides a profound examination about how we choose to love one another.
A Directorial Debut Delving into The Nuances of Love
Together marks the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It showcases actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for ten years. Having wed in reality in 2017, the two stars infuse a unique chemistry to their characters, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a committed partnership.
The plot commences when Millie and Tim move from the urban environment to the country for Millie’s job. A commonly used story element, sure, but that’s mostly where the conventions end. Together transforms into as much a examination of mental states of the partnership as it is a body horror flick.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their new home, a violent storm occurs, and Millie and Tim fall into an subterranean cavern. After spending the night there and eventually escaping, a strange force starts to affect the duo. This force compels a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond emotional intimacy.
The whole movie is a slow burn horror experience, blending elements of fever-dream horrors, gross (but never too gross) biological grotesqueries, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes amidst something horrific). Michael Shanks weaves these elements together neatly and presents them in a gradually swelling aura of dread.
Nuanced Portrayals
A great deal of Together is only Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Her self-assurance and sense of connection is deteriorating due to a distance. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his hesitance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Tim, on the other hand senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve relocated rural and removed from his support system. He is terrified of the notion of completely losing his personal autonomy in another person. This fear is amplified by the circumstance he can’t drive and relies on Millie for mobility.
The director's cleverest decision in Together avoids making one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
The couple confront the kind of problems that are inherent in most partnerships over a long period. At their core, they continue to care for each other. They share moments of joy, offer support, and open up at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together act as a metaphor for these anxieties of excessive reliance and totally devoting oneself to another person, the metaphor never feels overly obvious or heavy-handed. Instead, these visceral horror elements offer a brilliant analogue to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the frights and the fights work together symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s ending, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that single viewers have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for staying single. Meanwhile, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film ultimately assisted them reconcile.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you recognize your own traits in either protagonist and scream at your TV, or simply turn to your partner and say, “I’d do that for you”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can undertake today.
Together is currently playing on Hulu at present.
