'Together' is a Wild Melding of Dark Humor and Squirmy Body Horror [Review]

​I’ve been with my wife for about fifteen years now. We’ve lived together for fourteen of those years. It’s difficult to imagine life without her. In fact, it’s downright terrifying. What would I do? Who would I be? Would I even know how to exist on my own anymore? These are fears that I imagine many of you who are in a long-term relationship have faced, anxieties that writer/director Michael Shanks taps into with his feature debut, Together, a wild body horror film that takes co-dependency to its furthest extremes.

Wannabe rockstar, Tim (Dave Franco) and sensible teacher, Millie (Alison Brie), have been together for years. But with the recent death of Tim’s parents, he has grown distant. Cold. Afraid of commitment. At this pivotal point in their relationship, Millie has taken a teaching job that will move them out of the city and into the woods, away from the dreams of being a musician that Tim still believes possible. While out on a hike at their new place, the pair find themselves in a strange cavern, where they unknowingly become infected with something that quite literally intends on bringing them closer together, body, mind and all.

​Together may remind some audiences of last year’s The Substance for the simple reason that it isn’t afraid to get really fucking weird. It’s a fearless debut from Shanks with a concept that, on its face, is bizarre, and the filmmaker leans as far as possible into the inherently strange, silly nature of it. Infected by something that has created a forceful magnetism between Tim and Millie with the intention of fusing their bodies together, viewers are subjected to one outrageous moment after another. Hair is sucked into throats like a vacuum. The couple flails wildly as they’re dragged towards each other like puppets on strings, kicking and screaming. One sex scene becomes this film’s version of a finger-trap. There is no idea too weird for Together.

Shanks’ first feature is like Brian Yuzna's Society by way of the terror of co-dependency taken to its most extreme. Having witnessed the deeply unsettling way in which his mother reacted to the death of his father, Tim’s parents have inadvertently instilled in him a deep-rooted fear of taking the next step in commitment to Millie (i.e., marriage). Through shocking imagery and a dread-choked atmosphere, Together lives in the anxieties of a long-term relationship. Anyone who has been with someone for over a decade has at one point or another asked themselves the scary questions of could I survive without this person? Am I in love or am I merely comfortable? Do they still love me? Amidst all the absurdity and the slimy effects, there’s a relatable honesty to the film that manages to (mostly) keep it feeling genuine, despite the utter madness.

This story is one that is so intimate, so bold, so strange, that you have to imagine the cast and crew had at least a few days where they wondered, what the hell are we doing? That’s why, even though Shanks proves himself a talented director, it’s Franco and Brie (each a producer on the film, as well), that make it work. A real-life couple themselves for the last decade-plus, the pair bring a necessary chemistry to the characters that Together would fall flat on its face without. There’s a trust to their performances that invites the audience into this troubled relationship where questions of love vs. complacency are forced out into the open, kicking and screaming. Both Brie and Franco are as raw as you’ve ever seen them, sinking fully into the flesh of their characters in daring roles that are a far cry from the comedic performances each is most associated with. Their comedy chops certainly help though, adding a few much-needed laughs of relief. It shouldn’t be a surprise considering the cast, but Together knows the concept is silly, managing to balance the humor and scares without overstepping in either direction…for the most part. The one negative here is that, though this is a film about co-dependency, the audience isn’t given much to chew on from Millie’s end, leaving her character somewhat thin compared to Tim by not exploring her own reliance on her “boy partner” much deeper than surface level frustrations.

Like Adam from May, Together is a film for those of us sickos who “like weird”. For some of you, you may even find yourself saying, “not that weird”. Though a strong debut, Shanks’ film does become a bit tangled, shall we say, towards the end, tossing in unnecessary ideas that somewhat cheapen an otherwise effective exploration of co-dependent anxieties and fears of commitment. For a film about co-dependency, I would’ve liked to have seen an equal amount of meat put on the bone of Brie’s character, but the brave performances from Franco and herself more than make up for a good chunk of the script’s inefficiencies. Weird, wild and oddly beautiful, Together is the sort of film perfect for a midnight crowd, melding unsettling body horror and awkward humor into a tale that gives new meaning to the phrase, “we complete each other”.

Together arrives in theaters on July 30th from Neon. 

By Matt Konopka