Consider this a challenge for those in enduring partnerships who enjoy horror films: Get comfortable with your loved one and stream Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie just made its online premiere on Hulu. At first glance, it might appear like standard biological terror, but within Together resides a profound examination about how we choose to love one another.
A Directorial Debut Delving into Relationship Dynamics
Together marks the debut feature-length film for director Michael Shanks. It showcases Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have been together for ten years. Married in real life in 2017, Franco and Brie contribute a special spark to their roles, skillfully embodying both the good and bad of a enduring union.
The narrative starts when the couple move from the metropolis to the rural area for her career. A commonly used plot device, admittedly, but that’s mostly where the conventions cease. Together becomes as much a deep dive into the psyche of the couple's dynamic as it is a film about physical terror.
A Paranormal Spark
While hiking near their new home, a tempest descends, and the two fall into an subterranean cavern. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a supernatural entity starts to affect the duo. This force induces a paranormal intimacy between them that goes well past emotional intimacy.
The complete narrative is a gradually intensifying of scares, weaving in moments of fever-dream horrors, gross (but tastefully done) biological grotesqueries, and genuinely funny interactions (sometimes amidst something grotesque). Michael Shanks skillfully blends these components neatly and wraps them up in a slowly mounting sense of impending doom.
Nuanced Portrayals
A large part of Together is exclusively the two lead actors, and they masterfully render countless layers to the characters’ relationship. Her self-assurance and feeling of intimacy is suffering due to a emotional and physical gap. Her unspoken irritation of Tim for his unwillingness to chase only his failing musical ambitions slowly bubbles to the surface.
Tim, on the other hand senses confinement and cut off by Millie, who’s the cause they’ve moved to the country and distant from his network of friends. He fears the notion of totally forfeiting his individual identity in Millie. This fear is intensified by the reality he lacks a driver's license and is dependent on Millie for getting around.
Shanks’ smartest move is that he avoids making Tim or Millie the clear bad guy.
The couple confront the type of challenges that arise in long-term unions after ten years. Fundamentally, they continue to care for each other. They find humor with each other, offer support, and open up at times. But below this facade, there’s an inescapable feeling of questioning about their relationship.
Thematic Depth
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these concerns of unhealthy attachment and totally devoting oneself to a partner, the symbolism never feels clumsy or heavy-handed. Instead, these more disturbing, unsettling scenes present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the supernatural and the personal work together in harmony.
A Debated Finale
Together’s final act, which won’t be spoiled here, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about unhealthy partnerships. Accounts suggest that those not in relationships have seen the movie as a compelling reason for staying single. Conversely, certain partners who were in conflict found that the film ended up guiding them to make up.
Regardless of your relationship status, your own response could function as a telling indicator of how you think about commitment. Will the ending sow feelings of uneasiness and dread, or a positive outlook on love? Will you recognize your own traits in either protagonist and feel frustration, or simply look at your partner and say, “We could get through that together”?
Whatever the case may be, Together is an exploration you can undertake today.
Together is available to watch on Hulu at present.
