TOGETHER (2025)

Genre: Horror
Director:  Michael Shanks
Cast: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herriman, Mia Morrissey, Karl Richmond, Jack Kenny, Francesca Waters
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scenes and Disturbing Content)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 21 August 2025

Synopsis: Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie (Dave Franco and Alison Brie) find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country, abandoning all that is familiar in their lives except each other. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love, and their flesh. 

Movie Review:

‘Together’ is not a movie for the faint or squeamish of heart.

The debut feature from Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks, ‘Together’ is a literal meditation on what it truly takes for a couple to live up to their vows not to be apart from each other.

That is the struggle – physically, emotionally and psychologically – which confronts Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie), who move upstate after Millie accepts a teaching gig at the local school. Right from the start, it is clear that Tim is not quite crazy about the move, not only because it would inconvenience his still budding musician career, but also because it would make him even more dependent on her, given his inability to drive. So when Millie surprises Tim at their going-away party with a marriage proposal, Tim hesitates all too knowingly.

Their bond with each other is put to the test after they decide to explore the countryside in a bid to mend their relationship strained by bouts of bickering. Caught in an unexpected thunderstorm, Tim and Millie fall into an underground cave that appear to be the remnants of a church. It is there they encounter the natural spring which we are warned in the film’s preamble led to two canines being obsessed with each other in unnatural ways.

In the same way, things get icky, sticky and even freaky for our central couple very quickly. From their legs clinging together as though glued, to having their lips stick together during an unexpected snog, to waking up in the middle of the night to find him swallowing her hair, and to their very skin, flesh and bones conjoining together, Tim and Millie have to grapple with just how inseparable they accept being.

It isn’t difficult to see how this is ultimately a physical manifestation of their closeness and intimacy with each other, but Shanks struggles to translate the metaphor into real depth and nuance. Indeed, it is not clear what lesson on co-dependence we are expected to take away from the movie, or for that matter, if this is meant to be a cautionary tale on the state of modern-day co-habiting relationships (Millie refers to Tim as her “romantic boy partner”). In the absence of that, ‘Together’ simply becomes another exercise in body horror, let down from time to time by ropey CGI.

What Shanks does get right is casting Franco and Brie as his couple in question. For the uninitiated, both are married in real life, and both share an offbeat personality that make them nicely suitable for their respective roles. In particular, Brie portrays Millie in a way that earns your sympathy for wanting more out of her relationship with Tim, as well as your empathy when she grows increasingly edgy and brittle trying to come to terms with what is happening between them.

Like we warned at the start, ‘Together’ is not an easy watch, but it is also not exactly a compelling watch either. Pun aside, it doesn’t exactly flesh out what it wants to say about love, dependence and relationships, even as it quotes Plato’s Symposium and Aristophanes’s speech about how we began as two-faced, eight-limbed entities until we were split in two by Zeus and doomed to spend our lives looking for our other half. That said, there is no denying its gonzo sensibility, so if you’re in the mood for something less conventional even if not quite well-defined, ‘Together’ might stick with you in its own messy way (and yes, we intended that pun).

Movie Rating:

(Icky, sticky and freaky, 'Together' is a messy body horror that doesn't quite stick the metaphor about relationships and co-dependence)

Review by Gabriel Chong