Consider this a dare for long-term couples who enjoy the horror genre: Get comfortable with your significant other and stream Together. This independent film success of 2025 has now made its online premiere on the Hulu service. Outwardly, it could look like conventional body horror, but inside Together resides a intense contemplation about our choices in loving our partners.
A Debut Feature Investigating Relationship Dynamics
Together is the debut feature-length film for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It showcases the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, a pair who are not married that have been together for a decade. Having wed in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie bring a particular energy to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a committed partnership.
The story starts when Tim and Millie move from the urban environment to the countryside for her career. A familiar story element, sure, but that’s primarily where the conventions cease. Together evolves into as much a examination of mental states of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
An Otherworldly Trigger
While trekking near their rural residence, a violent storm occurs, and the two tumble into an hole in the earth. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a strange force starts to affect the pair. This force creates a otherworldly bond between them that goes exceeding emotional intimacy.
The entire film is a slow burn of scares, blending elements of fever-dream horrors, gross (but not excessively graphic) physical transformations, and surprisingly comedic exchanges (sometimes during something horrific). Shanks skillfully blends these components seamlessly and wraps them up in a consistently growing atmosphere of fear.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is solely the performances of its stars, and they skillfully illustrate countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is waning due to a emotional and physical gap. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his struggling artistic pursuits slowly bubbles to the surface.
Tim, on the other hand feels trapped and separated by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve relocated rural and far away from his network of friends. He fears the concept of utterly sacrificing his sense of self in Millie. This fear is amplified by the reality he lacks a driver's license and relies on Millie for getting around.
The film's most intelligent aspect is that he avoids making one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
Both characters face the kind of problems that arise in long-term unions over a long period. Deep down, they still love one another. They share moments of joy, offer support, and share intimately at times. But under the surface, there’s an inescapable current of uncertainty about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together represent these anxieties of codependency and fully committing to a partner, the allegory does not come across as hamfisted or heavy-handed. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments present a perfect parallel to the character-driven drama. Both the horror and the drama serve the other in a mutually beneficial way.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s final act, which remains unspoiled, has sparked debate on the story's concluding statement about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a powerful case for staying single. Meanwhile, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film actually helped them make up.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could act as a telling indicator of how you view relationships. Will the ending sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you recognize your own traits in Tim or Millie and scream at your TV, or simply look at your significant other and state, “I’d do that for you”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an experiment you can experience today.
Together is currently playing on Hulu now.
