We present a challenge for long-term couples who appreciate scary movies: Sit down with your partner and watch Together. The independent film success of 2025 has now made its streaming debut via Hulu. At first glance, it might appear like standard physical horror, but beneath Together resides a profound examination about the ways we decide to love our partners.
An Introductory Film Exploring Partnership Complexities
Together is the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks. It showcases actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a couple named Tim and Millie, partners that have remained a couple for a decade. Having wed in actuality in 2017, the actors bring a particular energy to their portrayals, expertly portraying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The plot begins when Tim and Millie move from the metropolis to the countryside for professional reasons. A commonly used narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the conventions conclude. Together transforms into as much a deep dive into the psyche of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their rural residence, a violent storm occurs, and the two fall into an underground cave. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a strange force begins influencing the pair. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The whole movie is a gradually intensifying fright fest, interspersing elements of hallucinatory nightmares, gross (but not excessively graphic) body horror, and surprisingly comedic exchanges (sometimes during something grotesque). Shanks orchestrates these parts neatly and presents them in a consistently growing aura of dread.
Complex Characterizations
A significant portion of Together is exclusively the performances of its stars, and they deftly portray manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and emotional bond is suffering due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to chase only his failing musical ambitions gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and separated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve relocated rural and distant from his network of friends. He dreads the concept of completely losing his personal autonomy in his partner. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact he lacks a driver's license and needs Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he refrains from painting either of his characters the clear bad guy.
Both characters grapple with the type of challenges that arise in any relationship after ten years. Fundamentally, they continue to care for each other. They still laugh together, offer support, and share intimately at times. But below this facade, there’s an inescapable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together represent these concerns of codependency and giving oneself over to a partner, the metaphor does not come across as clumsy or self-important. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal serve the other symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which won’t be spoiled here, has created disagreement on the movie's final takeaway about unhealthy partnerships. It has been said that those not in relationships have interpreted the film as a compelling reason for avoiding commitment. Meanwhile, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own reaction could potentially serve as a telling indicator of how you view relationships. Will the finale plant anxiety and horror, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you identify in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply look at your significant other and state, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can undertake right now.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform now.
