Together – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 42 minutes, Director – Michael Shanks

Moving from the city to a quiet town Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie’s (Alison Brie) relationship has fractured, however after lost whilst hiking the pair find themselves being at threat of being literally inseparable.

Perhaps the highest compliment that you could pay a body horror film is that some of the images in it will stay with and haunt you for a good time after. If that is the case then Together deserves high praise indeed for its freaky, squirm-inducing images, one instance involving an electric saw not even properly shown, as couple Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) fight to stop their bodies from fusing together.

With spells of prolonged dizziness when separated, before they start to be pulled by invisible forces towards each other as they start to almost combine, there’s a good deal to be creeped out by on-screen. Yet, writer-director Michael Shanks still manages to bring in an effective humour to the proceedings. There are a good number of laughs throughout Together, which I found to be funnier than Weapons which has been acclaimed for is comedic angles which I didn’t seem to find, including at the same time as being grossed out by the grislier suggestions and images. All brought about after the couple get lost whilst hiking in the woods around their new out-of-the-way home. Having fallen into a cave and being forced to stay there overnight there may literally have been something in the water that kicks everything off for them.

Beforehand we see tensions in their relationship. At a goodbye party before they leave the city, in front of all their friends, Millie proposes to Tim with the response being extended confusion, although instead of as what to say it seems to be more as to how to say no. The fractures only continue to grow throughout the film, before an acknowledgement from both that something is clearly wrong, making for an effective horror about co-dependency. One that perhaps works better through its appearing knowledge that it doesn’t have to be subtle, and at times almost throws itself towards the opposite. Although, decisions made in the final stages may lead to the ending, in terms of how it relates to the themes at play, being divisive.

Brie and Franco both put in solid performances, assisted by Shanks’ direction, especially in the moments focusing on the body horror and threat at hand, and get across the push-and-pull of both the central relationship and the mysterious force that’s committing them to the former. It makes for an entertaining and unsettling body horror, images from which are still causing me to shudder a couple of days after.

A funny and squirm-inducing look at co-dependency, Together’s body horror will hang around the mind for a good while after, with the unsettling nature in the moment pushed by Michael Shanks’ direction and the performances of Brie and Franco.