Publication Date: 08-07-2025

Together (2025) review

Dir. Michael Shanks

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Real-life husband-and-wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie must have a pretty strong marriage in order to commit to something like Together. In Michael Shanks’ directorial debut, the couple play Tim and Millie, respectively, a couple whose relationship is, as Woody Allen might put it, a dead shark. The two move out to the countryside when Millie gets a new teaching job while Tim, in his mid-thirties, hasn’t realized yet that his band is as directionless as their relationship. Tim has been battling depression for sometime, and although him and Millie are only romantic in fits and starts, he finds himself increasingly monetarily and emotionally dependent on her, something of which she is growing tired.

If you’ve seen the trailers, or even the film’s poster, you know what comes next. Tim and Millie begin conjoining at the lips, pelvises, and other extremities to the point where prying themselves away from one another hurts them both. Something starts overtaking them after they take a trip to a nearby cave, which was once a New Age church.

Shanks’ script adheres to the commonplace themes of contemporary horror by factoring trauma into the mix, but thankfully doesn’t spend a great deal of time on unwieldly exposition. Much of the activity in the film is shown, rather than told, which makes scenes of Franco and Brie conjoining disturbingly uncomfortable. If not for the physicality, the film leans into sounds of flesh stretching and squelching and all the hallmarks of disgusting body horror.

Obviously, this is a story about codependency and its threat to relationships, even if a union is seemingly predicated on shared experiences and a deep bond. The result is serviceably entertaining, but Together lacks a second gear. Its core theme is a fairly obvious one, and marginal disappointment does creep in at around the hour mark when you realize it’s less of a horror movie and more of a dark drama with macabre elements sprinkled into the screenplay.

Together is at least elevated by its dynamic performers, whose chemistry is natural and their relationship believable. Shanks has a command on the material, right down to a Spice Girls jumpscare in the waning minutes of the film. However, he tends to telegraph sequences in a way that recalls the only lurching negative quality of Ti West’s Pearl, where seasoned audiences have a clear idea of where moments are headed a few minutes before they end up happening. Ultimately, it’s a well-constructed work of dramatic horror, and it suggests that Shanks has the chops to take his next story further than his first.

Starring: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, and Damon Herriman. Directed by: Michael Shanks.