Body horror being a venue for filmmakers to explore relationship faults is not an unfamiliar game, especially with Andrzej Żuławski and David Cronenberg having offered their own spins on bitter relationships. Debuting writer-director Michael Shanks finds himself exploring this dynamic with Together, which is only further hammered down by the casting of real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie. From the title alone, you might get the sense that Together isn’t just about the potential to merge after having been inside a relationship for so long, but it’s also about how one half depends on the other. This alone would be where a more internalized horror is coming forth, but this being a first feature film, it doesn’t quite feel like the necessary extra steps were taken just yet.
Franco and Brie star as Tim and Millie, a couple whom have been dating for over a decade. After a marriage proposal turns awkward for the two of them, they end up moving to a cabin in the countryside, hoping to get a better sense of what they want most from each other. But the romantic rut that they find themselves in transforms into something more terrifying after a supernatural encounter close by their new home. It would be easy enough to guess what kind of bodily transformations we can expect ourselves to see in a film called Together, but at a certain point, it all rings a bit too obviously. For writer-director Michael Shanks, this film is one that comes out of a place within his own relationship together with his wife, but maybe that might also be where its foundations can all feel so rocky too.
There’s something horrifying coming out of this premise, given how much of it is built on the grounds of the inner resentments that would build from romantic relationships. Tim and Millie have been together for a long period of time, but that love that they share between one another isn’t perfect; especially as there’s a great sacrifice that brings them together. To Michael Shanks’s credit, he’s playing this film to feel like a romantic comedy so that it can ease you into something more terrifying happening underneath. Except what happens in Together isn’t really happening “underneath” the surface, because the film is making it clear that it’s wearing its themes on its sleeves. That’s not exactly a fault of Shanks, but it certainly is a failure on the grounds that this film’s sense of mystique ultimately ends up feeling lost because of how much it seems eager to explain everything that’s happening.
At a certain point, you begin to recognize these same patterns as Shanks hammers them down. Together is not particularly subtle about what it’s aiming at thematically, but the best body horror films have never been subtle either (in recent memory, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is a stunner). Shanks at least gives us some freaky imagery built from the nature of the transformations we’re seeing here, but even the most impressive effects work we’re seeing here comes undone by the lack of commitment to its physicality. I’m not hoping for every new body horror film to be bloodletting horror from start to finish, but there’s also a lot of missed opportunity for something far more absurdist, especially as the film unveils akin to a romantic comedy. Even this notion would feel cheapened, especially when a cheap jump scare takes place to remind you that it’s a horror movie.
Most of the film’s good will is carried on the shoulders of both Dave Franco and Alison Brie. Their casting feels perfect for a film like this, given the fact they are also married in real life. When one considers the place within Shanks’s life where this idea would be born, it feels like there’s at least something more harrowing coming forth in seeing a real couple enact these difficulties in their own relationship on the screen. For the two of them alone, it’d be worth watching Together, at least because we’re sensing that Shanks is commenting on what it feels like to break up at a time when you’d need the other half most.
Alas, it’s hard enough for me to fully get behind a body horror movie that isn’t nearly as committed to its mystique as it is presenting its core thematics on the surface as much as it can. When Together isn’t spelling out its themes to you, there’s a sense that we’re feeling a dissipating love reignite as the expected transformation is taking place. But there’s also no real sense of mystique anymore when Shanks isn’t really playing by the “show, don’t tell” approach, without fully embracing the absurdity of what he’s dealing with. For every creepy image you’ll see in Together, as the opening would be enough to make an impact, you’re also sensing that the intrigue is slowly undoing itself as the lore continues dumping itself minute by minute. It’s not enough to undo all the good, but it is enough to feel like every minute would seem telegraphed from a mile away.
Watch the trailer right here.
All images via NEON.
Directed by Michael Shanks
Screenplay by Michael Shanks
Produced by Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Mike Cowap, Andrew Mittman, Erik Feig, Max Silva, Julia Hammer, Timothy Headington
Starring Dave Franco, Alison Brie
Premiere Date: January 26, 2025
Running Time: 102 minutes
Cinema from the Spectrum 
Leave a comment