‘Together’ Movie Review: Intimacy And Flesh Make A Gnarly, Unsettling, Bizarrely Funny Blend
Photo from Neon
From Jeremy Kibler
This is one grotesque, unsettling way to explore a codependent and complacent relationship. Intimate character-based drama marries gnarly body horror in writer-director Michael Shanks’ feature debut, Together, a playfully disturbing argument for breaking up. What Shanks—and married partners Dave Franco and Alison Brie—are able to sell is a catchy premise that could have easily not worked once the metaphor becomes literal but forms such a relatable, skin-crawling, cathartically funny whole.
Franco and Brie play Tim and Millie, who aren’t yet married but have been together for a decade. He’s a musician and she’s an elementary school teacher, and together they’re taking the next step in their relationship by moving out of the city for Millie’s new job. As they get used to life in the country, Tim and Millie go on a hike and get caught in the rain, only to fall into an underground cave in the woods. Without any drinking water left, Tim turns to a pond in the cave, declaring it safe. What happens next is a series of bizarre and magnetic symptoms, and the couple will have to discover whether or not they want to complete each other forever.
Likable and sympathetic yet flawed, Tim and Millie feel like fully fleshed-out people who have passions, friends, and family (or in Tim’s case, the death of his parents still haunts him in a few truly nightmarish scenes). Brie already collided with woodsy relationship horror in Franco’s own feature debut, 2020’s Airbnb nightmare The Rental, and this is the culmination. They obviously have a natural chemistry, both committing to the bit and hitting every lovely but complicated note of being in a partnership (like a feeling of competition, resentments building if they aren’t communicated or compromised, and one losing their own sense of self). Casting a real-life couple to play a couple on screen cements our concern for Tim and Millie, bringing a deeper layer and verisimilitude to their relationship that can’t be faked.
When it comes to ramping up tension and allowing the horror to take shape, director Shanks strikes just the right tone. One is unnerved, taking the characters’ plight seriously, but still able to giggle through some extreme squeamishness. A sex scene in a boys’ restroom at Millie’s work, as well as a wildly physical hallway scene (you’ll know it when you see it), commands that balance just right. There is Chekhov’s Electric Saw, and while the scene that inevitably cuts some flesh delivers gruesome anticipation, Shanks doesn’t make the payoff off-putting. Where the film is slightly less strong but gets away with it anyway is when an explanation has to come; one almost wishes the script tweaked this expository moment or just left well-enough alone.
The ending use of Spice Girls’ “2 Become 1” might be too on-the-nose, but it’s perfectly cheeky and unshakable; why that particular song matters is established early on and doesn’t come out of nowhere. Expectations are still somehow upended for a final shot that gears one up for morbid amusement but actually leaves one with hope and the beginning of something new.
From observant writing, two pitch-perfect lead performances, and all of the technicals—Cornel Wilczek’s effective score, Germain McMicking’s arresting cinematography, squirm-inducing visual effects reminiscent of The Thing and The Substance, and some very squishy sound design—every element comes together in harmony. As it should, Together will worm its way under your skin, as being single might be less scary after all.
Rating: 4/5
Together is currently in theaters.
