‘Together’ Review

Relationships are scary.

Never more so than in ‘Together’, a movie that takes all of the familiar anxieties of being vulnerable with a partner, naked and exposed, and warps it into the stuff of nightmares. Director Michael Shanks shows an innate knowledge that moments of intimacy and attraction can be easily warped into disgust by zooming in, slowing down, and paying attention to just how weird the human body can be.

With committed performances from its leads, real married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco, and fueled by delirious tonal shifts, ‘Together’ is a worthy addition to the body horror pantheon.

Alison Brie and Dave Franco play Millie and Tim, a couple whose long relationship is reaching an all too familiar decision point: to get married or break up. After Millie accepts a remote teaching position, she and Tim move out to the country, hours away from their friends and life in the city. While on a hike through the woods, Millie and Tim find themselves sheltering from a vicious storm in a dark cave and, thirsty and with no end to the storm in sight, they drink from a pool of water. Waking up the next morning, they find their legs sticking to each other. They painfully pull apart, but over the course of the next few days they find themselves craving each other, seeking to touch, connect, become one; resulting in moments both funny and terrifying. Making subtext into horrifying text, Millie and Tim have to figure out how committed they are to each other, whether their union is a conscious choice or they’re just stuck.

Perhaps the most impressive element of ‘Together’ is just how perfectly Shanks executes such distinct genre beats. The movie opens as a relationship drama, with this couple trying to decide if they truly love each other or are just used to each other. Elevated by the pitch perfect chemistry between Brie and Franco, Millie and Tim are a frustrating and believable couple, fighting and hurting each other in ways only somebody who knows you so well can, making small comments for maximum devastation.

As they move into the country, the film shifts more fully into horror territory. The mood, the dread, the tension is perfectly built only to be punctured by scares effective in both their imagery and simplicity.

And then as the supernatural mayhem intensifies so does the humor, with the film morphing into a strange amalgamation of grotesque body horror, screwball and slapstick comedy. There are several I-can’t-believe-they-went-there moments, with the film showing the most absurd consequences of two bodies sticking to each other, refusing to separate.

Juggling such varied genre conventions can oft result in a muddled tone, more confusing than engaging, but in ‘Together’ each genre turn feels organic and compelling. Credit goes to Michael Shanks as well as the absolutely enthusiastic performances from Brie and Franco.

Ultimately the film ends with more of a joke than a truly satisfying conclusion to the supernatural mystery at its core. While I enjoyed it through its finish, I can’t help but think the philosophy of the world and all of the lore therein could have been explored more deeply to the film’s benefit. But this is a nitpick, an imagining of a different movie rather than the good time we have here; ending as it does with a moment of true love, a killer needle drop, and one last laugh.

Together
Rated R for violent/disturbing content, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and brief drug content.
Running Time: 1 hour and 42 minutes

Director Michael Shanks
Writers Michael Shanks
Stars Dave Franco, Alison Brie
Rating R
Running Time 102 Minutes
Genres Horror, Romance