Here's a challenge for long-term couples who enjoy horror films: Sit down with your partner and view Together. This critically acclaimed 2025 movie has now made its online premiere via Hulu. At first glance, it might appear like standard physical horror, but beneath Together exists a intense meditation about how we choose to love one another.
Together represents the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features actors Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, an unmarried couple that have stayed together for over ten years. Having wed in actuality in 2017, the two stars bring a particular energy to their characters, expertly portraying both the joys and frustrations of a long-term relationship.
The story commences when the couple relocate from the urban environment to the countryside for Millie’s job. A familiar narrative setup, admittedly, but that’s primarily where the cliches cease. Together transforms into as much a psychological exploration of the couple's dynamic as it is a body horror flick.
While walking near their new home, a violent storm occurs, and the two discover an underground cave. After spending the night there and finally finding a way out, a mysterious influence takes hold of the couple. This force creates a paranormal intimacy between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The entire film is a methodically building horror experience, weaving in moments of hallucinatory nightmares, disturbing (but not excessively graphic) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes amidst something grotesque). Shanks weaves these elements together neatly and delivers them in a slowly mounting atmosphere of fear.
A significant portion of Together is only the two lead actors, and they deftly portray numerous complexities to the characters’ relationship. Millie's sense of self and emotional bond is suffering due to a distance. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his unwillingness to focus on anything other than his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Conversely, Tim feels trapped and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and far away from his support system. He dreads the idea of completely losing his individual identity in his partner. This fear is intensified by the fact he lacks a driver's license and is dependent on Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he never makes one partner or the other the clear bad guy.
Tim and Millie confront the type of challenges that arise in most partnerships a decade in. Fundamentally, they still love one another. They still laugh together, offer support, and open up at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
While the paranormal elements in Together represent these concerns of excessive reliance and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the allegory does not come across as overly obvious or heavy-handed. Instead, these ickier, creepier moments offer a ideal counterpart to the interpersonal storytelling. Both the horror and the drama work together symbiotically.
Together’s conclusion, which is best experienced firsthand, has created disagreement on the film’s ultimate message about codependent relationships. Reports indicate that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a strong argument for avoiding commitment. Conversely, certain partners having disagreements found that the film actually helped them reconcile.
Whether you’re single or coupled up, your own reaction could act as a telling indicator of how you think about commitment. Will the ending inspire a sense of discomfort and fear, or a uplifting feeling of optimism? Will you recognize your own traits in Tim or Millie and scream at your TV, or simply glance toward your other half and utter, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an exploration you can undertake today.
Together is streaming on Hulu at present.
