Sometimes, you just have to kill your darlings. I realize that that phrase could be taken any number of ways if you know Together’s premise, but I mean it as a reflection on the film’s writing. The core of Michael Shanks’ directorial debut — a horror spectacle about the fear of long-term romantic commitment — is so strong that it’s disappointing when it goes on tangents and down rabbit holes which are simply unnecessary.
Real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco play Millie (Brie) and Tim (Franco), a couple on the verge of both marriage and catastrophe. When they move away from their big-city life in favor of an idyllic countryside setting, teacher Millie settles in quite well, while struggling musician Tim, who seemed reluctant at best about the move, starts to experience erratic episodes of anxiety based on his traumatic childhood. As these events escalate, especially after the couple falls into a spooky cave while on a hike, Millie initially chalks it up to a lack of intimacy between the two of them. But said cave reveals many more disturbing qualities as time goes on.
Tim and Millie do make it out of the cave, but their experience there comes at a price. They both start to experience violent physical episodes where they seem unable to be apart from each other, to the point where they struggle to physically separate after intimate moments. As audience members, we think some of this might be connected to Tim’s childhood, but no, it isn’t. That was just window dressing. It’s certainly not the worst window dressing I’ve ever seen, but I just can’t help wondering why it’s there in the first place. Then there are the symbols and iconography associated with things they see in the cave, which do come up later, but are not well-developed enough to justify the amount of time spent on them.
What is well-developed here is the feeling of dread between the two romantic partners. After Tim’s painfully awkward response to Millie’s marriage proposal in front of all their friends before the move, their relationship is believably on the rocks, especially as the two struggle to not succumb to the supernatural glue that might be about to bind them together forever. This leads to some fantastic body horror and horror comedy as they try to separate in various situations. Not only are the effects well-done, but the choreography of these sequences is top-notch, clearly helped by the fact that the two actors obviously have a fantastic amount of chemistry between them.
I go back and forth in my mind about this film’s flaws. On one hand, I absolutely adore the ending, especially the final shot, and that made anything I found rote or trite within the film worth sitting through. On the other hand, I don’t know how one could fix some of the writing mistakes other than by making the film probably twenty minutes longer, thereby possibly losing its crisp, poppy feeling. I guess I’m trying to say it could have and should have been even crisper. The metaphor, acting, and visuals are all so strong here that I wish the film was the sum total of its strengths, and not subtracted from by needless backstory. Still, for horror fans, it is a great date-night movie, but perhaps only for those in the healthiest of relationships. | George Napper
