Here's a challenge for long-term couples who are fans of scary movies: Get comfortable with your loved one and stream Together. The 2025 indie hit has now made its online premiere via Hulu. At first glance, it may seem like typical body horror, but inside Together exists a deep examination about the ways we decide to love each other.
A Debut Feature Investigating Partnership Complexities
Together represents the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks. It stars actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for over ten years. Married in reality in 2017, the actors infuse a particular energy to their characters, masterfully depicting both the joys and frustrations of a committed partnership.
The story starts when the couple move from the metropolis to the country for professional reasons. A commonly used plot device, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the tropes cease. Together becomes as much a deep dive into the psyche of the pair’s relationship as it is a body horror flick.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While hiking near their country house, a violent storm occurs, and the two discover an hole in the earth. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a strange force starts to affect the pair. This force creates a supernatural closeness between them that goes exceeding simple connection.
The complete narrative is a slow burn fright fest, weaving in elements of fever-dream horrors, gross (but tastefully done) body horror, and authentically humorous dialogue (sometimes in the middle of something horrific). The director weaves these elements together neatly and delivers them in a consistently growing aura of dread.
Complex Characterizations
A large part of Together is solely the two lead actors, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a lack of intimacy. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and isolated by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve relocated rural and distant from his support system. He dreads the idea of completely losing his individual identity in his partner. This fear is amplified by the reality he can’t drive and relies on Millie for mobility.
The director's cleverest decision is that he never makes Tim or Millie the obvious villain.
Both characters confront the kind of problems that are inherent in most partnerships after ten years. Deep down, they have affection for one another. They still laugh together, provide solace, and open up at times. But beneath it all, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their bond.
Symbolism and Metaphor
While the supernatural forces in Together represent these anxieties of unhealthy attachment and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the allegory avoids being clumsy or self-important. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments provide a perfect parallel to the character-driven drama. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s ending, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the film’s ultimate message about enmeshed dynamics. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. Conversely, some couples having disagreements found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own interpretation could act as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the ending plant anxiety and horror, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in Tim or Millie and feel frustration, or simply look at your other half and state, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can experience at this very moment.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu as of this moment.
