Together [Film Review]

Together
Released: July 31, 2025

‍Director: Michael Shanks.
Starring: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Damon Herriman.

One of the most talked about horror movies of 2025 is coming out this Thursday and I can confidently tell you the hype is completely deserved. I watched Together twice last week and I could easily go and watch it again.

Millie (Alison Brie) and her “boy partner” Tim (Dave Franco) have been in a relationship for the better part of a decade and are about to embark on a major life change: they’re ditching city living for the chill countryside life. It’s said that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can go through, along with death and starting a new job and for Millie and Tim, it starts to strain their already tense relationship. They haven’t been intimate in quite a while, and a marriage proposal at their farewell party goes tragically awry. On top of that, Millie has had to be the grown-up in the relationship while Tim pursued his dreams of being a rockstar, and this move is a rude wake-up call that those dreams failed.

Tim starts to feel trapped, primarily because he never got his licence (to be fair you don’t need one living in the city) and apparently this town doesn’t have Uber. If he wants to go somewhere, he needs to fit in with Millie’s work schedule so she can drive him. Moving into a new home with no internet, you might think this would be a great time for them to unplug and reconnect with each other but instead, they have the most insane week that changes their lives forever.

While moving in, Tim notices a rancid smell inside the house and because he’s part bloodhound, tracks the foul odour upstairs and finds what appears to be a cluster of intertwined deceased rats near a ceiling fixture. Rather than bagging and binning the animal, or even burying it, he tosses it into the backyard because nothing fixes the stench of death quite like letting a corpse roast in the sunlight.

A couple of days later, they go on a disastrous hike that sees them both fall inside the remnants of a sunken church. Deciding to wait until the rain stops before trying to climb out, they spend the night and quickly realise they didn’t pack enough water (he did pack wine though, the essentials for any outdoor exercise!), but Tim decides to drink from the pool of water down there, the same pool of water we saw two dogs drink from earlier and later that night they looked like Siamese twins. When the couple wakes the next morning, their legs have glued together with some sticky substance that’s all over the cave. Everything they pick up has a trail of goop, but the events of that night have a significant impact on Tim. He suddenly can’t bear to be away from Millie, practically having panic attacks and giving up work opportunities to be close to her, and he suddenly has a desire for physical intimacy again, but every time it ends painfully for both of them.

Meanwhile, Millie has become friends with co-worker and neighbour Jamie (Damon Herriman), and during a chat where she’s questioning her relationship with Tim, Jamie talks about Plato’s ‘Symposium’ - a philosopher dialogue from ancient Greece - which speaks about how humans originally had four arms, four legs and two faces and fearing their power, Zeus had them all split in two. Now humans roam the Earth trying to find their other half.

At home, mysterious powers are intensifying their efforts to bring these two closer, now exerting influence over their bodies while they slumber. Despite their efforts, neither is strong enough to resist as their bodies slide and contort along the floor until finally their arms merge into one. Their efforts to separate are hilarious but are ultimately futile.

With so much of the movie marketing focusing exclusively on Alison Brie and Dave Franco, I had no idea this was an Australian production 'til right now. Together is the debut feature film of Aussie director/writer Michael Shanks, who infused aspects of his personal experiences into this disturbingly unconventional romantic comedy filmed in Victoria. The tale of a deceased rat is sufficient for me to exclusively rely on lamps for the rest of my life. If you pay close attention during the movie, you’ll also notice a nod to an Aussie rock band on one of Tim’s T-shirts.

Earlier, I mentioned having watched Together twice last week. My mind has this tendency to quickly lose focus, or I might concentrate so deeply on something that I completely tune out the person speaking on screen, and suddenly I’m sure I’ve missed an important plot detail, which is super problematic when you need to write about what you just watched. Seeing the same movie in two different settings though, was a very different vibe. On the one hand, going to a screening with other movie buffs means you never have to worry about anyone talking. They respect the cinema experience far too much, We all found the film hilarious, particularly when the Spice Girls' music started playing. On the other hand, attending a regular screening with some casual movie goers and the jokes weren’t landing with anyone, and one woman was convulsing so violently that being in the same row as her felt like experiencing an earthquake. Honestly, you’d think Michael Myers was on the screen.

Let me be clear, Together isn’t scary and there’s no jump scares, but if you’ve watched 80’s horror movies like Society or The Thing, you’re going to love this! The special effects are incredible. The creature designs are gruesome, and observing the way their skin shifts and contorts as their hands slither up one another's arms is disturbing. But outside of that, Together is 100% a rom-com. Brie and Franco brought so much life to their characters, and it’s easy to downplay their chemistry as being a real-life married couple, but we all saw Eyes Wide Shut and you can’t convince me that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were ever in love.

Although this film is widely promoted as a story centred on co-dependency, your interpretation of it may depend on your personal experiences. I saw the dark side of co-dependency growing up and vowed I would never have a relationship. So, for me, I don’t relate to that side of the story, but luckily, Together is so much deeper than that. I found the Greek mythology of the “Twin Flame” fascinating. The belief that one soul exists in two bodies suddenly makes "co-dependency" romantic because they’ve found their other half. Additionally, there's a subplot that explores Tim's history and how trauma significantly influences our ability to manage relationships, whether they are romantic or platonic. Trauma can make us standoffish or clingy. Sometimes both. It does make for one pretty creepy scene, but the problem is it feels completely out of place to the tone of the rest of the movie.

I've watched fewer movies this year due to the cost of living crisis, which has greatly reduced trips to my favourite cinema. However, Together is definitely the best film I've seen so far this year by a long shot. The only thing stopping me from giving this a 100% rating is a plot hole that bothers me, but at the same time, maybe I’m just overthinking things.

Rating: 4.5/5
Review by Katie Torrance