Remember me
Here’s a challenge for any horror fans in a long-term relationship: Sit down with your partner and watch Together. The 2025 indie hit just made its streaming debut on Hulu, and while on the surface it may seem like standard body horror, within Together lies a deep contemplation about how we choose to love one another.
Together is the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks and stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have been together for a decade. Having wed in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie bring a special spark to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a relationship. Through its blend of scares and emotional examination, what sticks with you may be very illuminating: Are you more terrified of the supernatural forces at play, or codependency?
The story begins when Millie and Tim move from the big city to the countryside for Millie’s job. A somewhat stereotypical plot device, sure, but that’s largely where the tropes end and Together becomes as much a psychological exploration of the pair’s relationship as it is a body horror flick.
While hiking near their home, a storm hits, and Millie and Tim fall into an underground cave. After spending the night there and eventually escaping, a strange force begins influencing the couple, forcing a supernatural closeness between them that goes far beyond emotional intimacy. The entire film is a slow burn of scares, interspersing bits of hallucinatory nightmares, gross (but never too gross) body horror, and genuinely funny exchanges (sometimes in the middle of something grotesque). Shanks weaves these elements together neatly and wraps them up in a gradually swelling aura of dread.
A great deal of Together is solely Brie and Franco, and they deftly portray countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Millie’s confidence and sense of connection is suffering due to a lack of intimacy, and her subconscious resentment of Tim for his reluctance to pursue anything but his floundering music career slowly bubbles to the surface.
Tim, on the other hand, feels trapped and isolated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve moved to the country and far away from his support system of friends. He fears the idea of completely losing his sense of self in another person, which is further exacerbated by the fact he can’t drive and relies on Millie for transportation.
Shanks’ smartest movie in Together is that he never makes either of his characters the clear bad guy. Tim and Millie face the sort of issues that come with any relationship a decade in, and at their core they still love each other. They still laugh together, comfort one another, and open up at times, but under the surface, there’s an inescapable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Image: Neon
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these fears of codependency and fully committing to another person, the metaphor never feels hamfisted or pretentious. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments offer a perfect parallel to the interpersonal storytelling, with both serving the other symbiotically.
Together’s ending, which I won’t spoil here, left audiences divided on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. “We have talked to single people who say this is a very strong argument for staying single, and then we talked to a couple who were in a fight all week and the film actually helped them make up,” Franco told The Guardian in an interview alongside Brie, where the real-life couple assured fans that their own marriage remains “pretty healthy.”
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could potentially serve as a great barometer of how you view relationships. Will the ending sow feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you see yourself in one of the characters and scream at your TV that they need to break up, or simply turn to your other half and say, “I’d do that for you”? Whatever the case may be, Together is an experiment you can undertake right now.
Together is streaming on Hulu now.
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