Consider this a test for long-term couples who appreciate scary movies: Settle in with your loved one and watch Together. This independent film success of 2025 has now made its online premiere on Hulu. On the surface, it could look like typical physical horror, but beneath Together exists a intense meditation about how we choose to love our partners.
An Introductory Film Delving into Relationship Dynamics
Together represents the introductory feature for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It showcases the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have remained a couple for a decade. Married in actuality in 2017, the two stars bring a particular energy to their characters, skillfully embodying both the strengths and weaknesses of a long-term relationship.
The narrative starts when Millie and Tim move from the urban environment to the country for professional reasons. A familiar story element, of course, but that’s largely where the tropes end. Together becomes as much a examination of mental states of the couple's dynamic as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their rural residence, a storm hits, and the protagonists fall into an subterranean cavern. After a night spent there and managing to escape, a strange force takes hold of the duo. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes exceeding simple connection.
The entire film is a slow burn horror experience, weaving in moments of fever-dream horrors, disturbing (but never too gross) body horror, and authentically humorous interactions (sometimes in the middle of something disturbing). The director orchestrates these parts seamlessly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Complex Characterizations
A great deal of Together is only Brie and Franco, and they masterfully render manifold depths to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and feeling of intimacy is deteriorating due to a distance. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his reluctance to chase only his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the impetus they’ve relocated rural and removed from his social circle. He dreads the idea of completely losing his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is amplified by the fact he can’t drive and needs Millie for getting around.
The director's cleverest decision in Together never makes either of his characters the obvious villain.
Tim and Millie face the sort of issues that come with most partnerships over a long period. At their core, they still love each other. They share moments of joy, provide solace, and open up at times. But under the surface, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their future together.
Thematic Depth
While the paranormal elements in Together act as a metaphor for these anxieties of excessive reliance and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the metaphor never feels clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes offer a brilliant analogue to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal enhance each other symbiotically.
A Divisive Ending
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has sparked debate on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have seen the movie as a powerful case for remaining unattached. On the other hand, a few pairs who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could function as a revealing measure of how you think about commitment. Will the conclusion plant a sense of discomfort and fear, or a heartwarming sense of hope? Will you see yourself in one of the characters and feel frustration, or simply glance toward your partner and utter, “We could get through that together”?
No matter your reaction, Together is an exploration you can undertake today.
Together is currently playing on Hulu's platform at present.
