Here's a test for partners in committed relationships who enjoy horror films: Settle in with your partner and stream Together. This independent film success of 2025 has now made its streaming debut on the Hulu service. Outwardly, it might appear like conventional body horror, but within Together exists a deep meditation about how we choose to love our partners.
A Debut Feature Delving into Partnership Complexities
Together marks the first full-length movie for director Michael Shanks. It showcases Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, a pair who are not married that have remained a couple for a decade. Having wed in actuality in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a particular energy to their roles, masterfully depicting both the strengths and weaknesses of a committed partnership.
The narrative starts when the couple relocate from the urban environment to the rural area for professional reasons. A commonly used plot device, of course, but that’s largely where the tropes conclude. Together evolves into as much a psychological exploration of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While walking near their new home, a tempest descends, and the protagonists tumble into an underground cave. After a night spent there and eventually escaping, a strange force starts to affect the pair. This force compels a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding simple connection.
The entire film is a slow burn fright fest, weaving in bits of dreamlike terrors, gross (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and surprisingly comedic interactions (sometimes during something disturbing). The director skillfully blends these components expertly and delivers them in a slowly mounting aura of dread.
Complex Characterizations
A great deal of Together is exclusively Brie and Franco, and they skillfully illustrate numerous complexities to the dynamic between Tim and Millie. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his hesitance to chase only his floundering music career inexorably rises.
Conversely, Tim experiences isolation and separated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve relocated rural and far away from his support system. He fears the notion of completely losing his sense of self in Millie. This fear is intensified by the reality he can’t drive and relies on Millie for mobility.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he never makes Tim or Millie the clear bad guy.
Both characters confront the type of challenges that arise in most partnerships after ten years. At their core, they continue to care for one another. They share moments of joy, comfort one another, and are vulnerable at times. But beneath it all, there’s an unavoidable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together act as a metaphor for these concerns of codependency and fully committing to a partner, the metaphor never feels clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes provide a ideal counterpart to the character-driven drama. Both the frights and the fights serve the other in harmony.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s conclusion, which remains unspoiled, has left audiences divided on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a strong argument for avoiding commitment. On the other hand, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could function as a telling indicator of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you see yourself in one of the characters and feel frustration, or simply glance toward your significant other and state, “I understand that choice”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can experience today.
Together is streaming on Hulu's platform now.
