Director: Michael Shanks
Cast: Dave Franco, Alison Brie
Where to watch: In theatres
Rating: ***1/2
Together: Review
Michael Shanks’ Together opens with a mutated dog and ends with a shared spinal cord. Somewhere in between, it squishes through a gooey love story that takes “clingy” to a whole new biological level.
Tim and Millie (played by real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie) are long-time partners looking for a reset. When they move from the city to a sleepy rural town, things seem promising until they drink from a cave spring and begin fusing. Yes, physically. Not in a poetic “two become one” sense, but in a deeply anatomical, borderline unholy way.
Shanks doesn’t go for subtlety. This is co-dependency as body horror, commitment via conjoined cartilage. The emotional breakdown is literal, the metaphor grotesquely clear. What begins as a relationship on the rocks becomes a slow and squelchy journey into shared tissue, blurred identity, and romantic entrapment.
This film marks Shanks’ feature debut. Known for his short-form digital work, he leans into the concept with more enthusiasm than narrative precision. Not every plot thread lands, but the tone is consistent: weird, sad, funny, and kind of sweet, if you can stomach it.
Together: Actors’ Performance
Alison Brie plays Millie with the tense control of someone used to managing everything (including her partner), while Franco’s Tim is a floppy mix of passive-aggressive charm and creative inertia. They’re both infuriating and familiar, making their emotional spiral believable even as their limbs start melting into each other.
The actors are clearly game for the grotesquery. Brie balances Millie’s exasperation with genuine tenderness, while Franco commits to Tim’s helplessness without turning him into a total cliché. Their real-life chemistry helps them sell even the most bizarre of bodily entanglements, particularly in scenes where they're stitched together, arguing about past grievances and unfinished chores.
Together: Music and Aesthetics
This absurdist drama uses its misty, rural backdrop to reflect the characters’ growing isolation and disorientation. The visual tone slips between romantic indie softness and gooey practical effects, with the merging process rendered in unnerving, skin-crawling detail.
The prosthetics and makeup are the film’s visual highlight. They are tactile, unsettling, and oddly hypnotic. Unfortunately, the climax trades in some of that grit for CGI gloss, which momentarily breaks the spell. The score mostly keeps to the background, wisely letting the wet, sticky sound design drive the mood. It's not pretty, but it’s effective.
Together: FPJ Verdict
Together isn’t your typical horror film. It’s part satire, part tragic romance, and part science experiment gone sentimentally sideways. The story doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny, and some of its weirder plot elements (like the hinted history of prior fusions) feel undercooked. But the film knows exactly what it wants to be, and commits to the chaos with gusto.
If you’re up for a love story that’s messy, literal, and not easily separated, Together delivers a weirdly heartfelt experience. Just be warned: this is not a film you can unsee.
