Here's a dare for those in enduring partnerships who enjoy horror films: Get comfortable with your significant other and watch Together. The independent film success of 2025 has now made its streaming debut on the Hulu service. Outwardly, it could look like typical biological terror, but within Together lies a profound contemplation about how we choose to love one another.
An Introductory Film Exploring The Nuances of Love
Together marks the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It showcases actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have remained a couple for ten years. Married in actuality in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a unique chemistry to their portrayals, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a enduring union.
The narrative begins when Millie and Tim transition from the metropolis to the countryside for her career. A familiar story element, sure, but that’s mostly where the tropes end. Together evolves into as much a psychological exploration of the pair’s relationship as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While hiking near their new home, a storm hits, and the two discover an underground cave. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a mysterious influence takes hold of the couple. This force compels a supernatural closeness between them that goes well past typical partnership.
The whole movie is a methodically building of scares, weaving in moments of fever-dream horrors, gross (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes during something horrific). The director weaves these elements together expertly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is only the performances of its stars, and they skillfully illustrate manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Tim, on the other hand feels trapped and separated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve relocated rural and removed from his support system. He fears the idea of completely losing his individual identity in Millie. This fear is intensified by the fact he can’t drive and needs Millie for mobility.
The film's most intelligent aspect in this movie avoids making one partner or the other the obvious villain.
The couple grapple with the kind of problems that arise in long-term unions a decade in. Fundamentally, they continue to care for one another. They find humor with each other, comfort one another, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an persistent feeling of questioning about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the otherworldly presence in Together symbolize these concerns of codependency and giving oneself over to a partner, the metaphor avoids being hamfisted or heavy-handed. Instead, these visceral horror elements present a perfect parallel to the character-driven drama. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a strong argument for staying single. Conversely, some couples who were in conflict found that the film ultimately assisted them resolve their issues.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could act as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion inspire feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a positive outlook on love? Will you see yourself in either protagonist and yell at the screen, or simply turn to your partner and say, “I’d do that for you”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can undertake today.
Together is currently playing on the streaming service Hulu now.
