Directed by: Michael Shanks
Written by: Michael Shanks
Run Time: 1 hour 42 mins

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After the massive success of Coralie Fargeat’s Oscar-winning body horror The Substance (2024) a renewed interest in similar stories was inevitable. The popularity of her film will surely encourage a fresh batch of body horrors on the big screen, however it’s probable that the subgenre’s latest addition, Michael Shanks’ Together, was an idea conceived well before The Substance was even released – especially considering the response to the unfortunate accusations of plagiarism overshadowing its roll-out. Nonetheless, its arrival marks the first mainstream body horror released in a post-The Substance world; a world that’s had its eyes opened, but also, its expectations raised.

Shanks’ film sees real-life husband and wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie star as a young couple, Tim and Millie, who have just moved from the city to the countryside. With tensions already high after the move, additional strain is put on their relationship when Tim begins to act strangely, seemingly unable to maintain any kind of distance between himself and Millie. It later becomes apparent that some kind of supernatural force is pushing the pair together, seeing the couple come face to face with a level of physical closeness unlike anything they’ve experienced before.

Together sets its tone well with an ominous prologue, giving audiences vital context about the location that Tim and Millie are moving to. A search party hard at work looking for a missing couple unearths something seriously sinister deep in the forest, meanwhile back in the city Tim and Millie are blissfully unaware, celebrating with friends at their going away party. It’s here that Shanks starts to observe the pre-existing problems in their relationship. Tim seems distant, taking refuge in boxes of records in an unoccupied room rather than socialising. While Millie is the life and soul of the party. The more conversations that take place the clearer it becomes that this is a move for Millie, not Tim.

The couple’s co-dependency is the main theme of the film, with the screenplay implying that Tim is trapped in a one-sided relationship that only benefits Millie. This only exacerbates as the couple try to settle into their new home. Unable to drive, Tim is confined to the house, relying on lifts to the train station from Millie if he wants to return to the city to play in her brother’s band. Yet when he tries to make this journey, or even when Millie leaves him at home alone, something always draws them back together, and in increasingly violent and disturbing fashion.

What follows is an intriguing blend of visceral body horror with more serious relationship drama. However, the horror elements are actually strongest in the early stages, with some particularly effective nighttime scares standing out most. Compared to where the film ends up, these moments are distinctively smaller in scale, but they’re more unnerving than any of the more elaborate set pieces to come.

When the film does arrive at these heavily teased, more graphic sequences of body horror, it doesn’t have the confidence to fully commit to them. Instead, it introduces smatterings of comedy alongside them which takes the edge off the shock and disgust the audience should be feeling, ultimately pivoting from the more serious tone it previously established. Thankfully, the humour is not overdone and the film remains entertaining, but it does feel like a missed opportunity to fully fuse together its intriguing mixture of subgenres.

What Together does take full advantage of though is Dave Franco and Alison Brie’s chemistry, because, unsurprisingly, the pair make for just as convincing a cinematic couple as they do in real-life. Although as is already evident, their characters are far from being in their honeymoon period anymore, and the tension in their relationship is palpable. Brie affords Millie an understandable feeling of frustration towards Tim’s behaviour with subtle nuances in her line deliveries and shifts in body language, while Franco has this insecure air about him that suits Tim’s reluctance to either commit to the relationship or leave it altogether.

Yet, when the narrative allows it, their romantic chemistry cuts through these differences to convince audiences of the magnetism that presumably first brought them together, and continues to despite the array of new horrors emerging in their relationship. This, coupled with the nature of the subgenre, means that Together demands particularly physical performances of its two main cast, and they commit fully, both offering especially enthusiastic efforts.

It’s somewhat ironic then, that in a film that explicitly explores the intricacies of co-dependency, that the script is content to rely so heavily on their dramatic vigour without pulling its equal share of the weight. As while Alison Brie and Dave Franco work so tirelessly for the film, there was certainly space for Together to have given a little bit more back to them.

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Star Rating: ★ ★ ★

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