Together Review
There’s a clever, squirmy idea pulsing at the center of Together: what if a faltering couple’s codependency literally fuses, warps, and oozes into existence? Michael Shanks’ supernatural body-horror debut puts real-life partners Alison Brie and Dave Franco in the splash zone, asking them to play Millie and Tim as their relationship curdles during a move upstate—just before an encounter with a mysterious force makes their love (and flesh) inseparable. It’s pitched as a dark, goopy comedy about intimacy and identity, and NEON’s marketing leaned into the “date night from hell” hook for good reason.
Still, for all its grisly invention and a game lead duo, Together often underlines its themes so hard that the movie leaves little for us to discover on our own.
Together (2025), NEON
Chaotic Couples therapy
Brie and Franco’s natural rhythm pays dividends. They bicker with the fluency of people who know where the other keeps their soft spots, and the film weaponizes that familiarity once bodies begin to change.
The chemistry quickly helps sell Millie and Tim’s push-pull: one partner ready to commit to a new life, the other adrift and clinging, which makes the eventual corporeal entanglements feel like a gnarly metaphor for staying together out of fear. Their off-screen marriage doesn’t come off as a gimmick so much as a pressure cooker that can hold uncomfortable honesty—something Shanks has repeatedly emphasized while talking about how far the actors went to land the body-horror beats.
Sure, we doubt the pair brought their own relationship experiences to the story—but the film requires a certain level of chemistry between these characters, which we definitely get from both Brie and Franco.
Big themes, broad highlighter
Together is very clear about what it’s “about”: codependency, complacency, and the ways comfort becomes corrosion. That clarity is admirable—but the film often annotates itself in bold font.
Scenes that begin intriguingly (a tense social interaction, a revealing argument) tend to end with a line or a setup that circles the thesis yet again. In that way, the movie largely lacks subtlety; you can feel the screenplay pushing us toward the intended read rather than trusting the audience to meet it halfway.
The result isn’t didactic so much as flattening: Millie and Tim teeter between intriguing contradictions and half-sketched archetypes, and the movie sometimes mistakes statement for depth. While it’s understandable that the film would need to draw up some obvious connections to its core messages, a film as visceral as this could have benefited from a little thematic nuance.
Gooey set pieces, mixed results
As horror, this thing swings for the fences: practical effects, tactile gags, and some legitimately uncomfortable beats. But not every swing lands. For example, the lengthy bathroom-stall sex scene aims for claustrophobic taboo shock and ends up feeling like pure provocation—“see how far we’ll go” more than “see what this reveals.” It’s a textbook case of shock value stopping momentum rather than deepening it.
On the other hand, some sequences stick the landing (their unshakable magnetism, a final transformation moment, etc.). Overall, it doesn’t exactly achieve the technicality of The Substance in terms of body horror, but it certainly has its moments.
Characters in search of contours
Because the metaphors are so foregrounded, Millie and Tim sometimes read as delivery systems for ideas rather than people whose choices surprise us. You can argue that their wobbliness is the point—that they’re in flux, literally and emotionally—but the script doesn’t always extend them the grace of specificity.
Their desires blur, their fears repeat, and their backstories skim. The performers keep the relationship credible, and there’s lived-in banter that lands, yet the movie rarely lets their contradictions breathe without underlining them with another monstrous flourish or on-the-nose reveal.
For a film preoccupied with the risks of melding identities, Together could use a few more jagged edges to really emphasize that significance.
A Quirky Final Act
If you’re patient with the bumps, the last stretch gets weird in satisfying ways, tying the film’s queasy humor to an ending that actually feels earned. It doesn’t retroactively solve the over-explanation problem, but it does send you out with a grin and a grimace—fitting for a body-horror romance that wants to make commitment feel at once cozy and catastrophic.
As a late-night streaming pick (its digital rollout has already begun), Together is built to spark “did you see that?!” debates about whether the film’s audacity outweighs its obviousness.
Score: 6/10
Just barely above average, Together’s shocks feel real, and a few images will crawl under your skin, but the film’s eagerness to spell itself out—and to chase a few obvious gags—keeps it from becoming a new body horror staple.
