Together 2025 Review: Are We Really Stronger as One or Miserable Together?

Relationships are funny things. Sometimes they make you feel whole, and sometimes they make you feel like you’re losing yourself entirely. Together takes that idea—co-dependency—and literally fuses it into a horror film. And I can’t quite decide if that’s genius or just deeply unsettling. Maybe it’s both.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t walk into this one with much enthusiasm. I only hit “play” because Dave Franco and Alison Brie were starring, and I was curious to see how their real-life marriage would play out on screen. Celebrity couples don’t always work on camera (the awkward Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez era comes to mind), but Franco and Brie? They clicked. Their chemistry felt natural, even when the story itself veered into the grotesque.

And grotesque it is. I was bracing for a quiet sci-fi horror, but this turned out to be full-on body horror—prosthetics, disfigurement, flesh literally glued together. I have a complicated relationship with body horror. Kevin Smith’s Tusk traumatised me years ago, and I’ve never rewatched it. I don’t scare easily with ghosts or slashers, but show me a warped, broken body and I’m done for. So Together had me shifting in my seat from early on.

The set-up is deceptively simple. Tim (Franco) and Millie (Brie) move to the countryside. He’s grieving the death of his parents, struggling with his mental health, and clinging to dreams of being a musician. She’s the pragmatic one: landing a teaching job, making plans, carrying the weight of their life together. Their tension is obvious from the start—resentments bubbling up about responsibility, intimacy, even the small stuff like driving Tim around because he doesn’t have a licence. These aren’t outlandish problems; they’re the small, grating truths of long-term relationships.

Alison Brie as Millie and Dave Franco as Tim

Then, of course, horror literally sticks them together.

A rainy hike leads to a fall into a cave, where they find an otherworldly well and strange black roots. Tim makes the classic horror-movie mistake of drinking from the cave water (seriously, who does that? I was practically yelling Do you want typhoid? at the screen). Soon after, they wake up partially fused together—legs stuck, flesh merging. They manage to rip apart, painfully, but the “pull” between them doesn’t go away. They’re magnetic, tethered by some unseen force.

At first, it’s almost played for laughs—especially during a sex scene in a school bathroom that had me both wincing and cackling—but gradually it becomes darker. The film weaves in cult mythology: the story of humans once being whole—four arms, four legs, two faces—before Zeus split them apart, leaving us doomed to search for our other halves. Tim becomes obsessed with the idea, convinced their “connection” has a higher meaning. Millie just wants her own space back, her own body.

It’s here that Together asks its real question: are we stronger when we merge with another person, or do we lose ourselves completely?

Performances make this work. Dave Franco surprised me. He’s long shed his frat-boy comedy roles, but here he taps into something raw and vulnerable—grief, shame, a fear of being alone. He reminded me of his brother James in those broken, inward roles, though Dave brings a gentleness that keeps you invested. Alison Brie, at first, felt like she was slipping into familiar territory—sharp, witty, almost Annie-from-Community—but she grows into the role as Millie’s desperation builds. The scene where she ties Tim to a chair, prepared to saw their arms apart, had me fully sold.

Director Michael Shanks threads his own anxieties about relationships into the film, and you can feel it. The entity binding Tim and Millie isn’t just a horror gimmick—it’s the personification of co-dependency. The push and pull, the manipulation, the unbearable closeness, the inability to leave even when you want to. Shanks shows us the ugly side of “we’re stronger together.” Because sometimes, that bond is just chains in disguise.

By the final act, the horror shifts into something strangely romantic—or maybe disturbingly romantic. Tim and Millie give in. They merge fully, becoming “Tillie,” a single being, the cult’s dream realised. The bell at their doorstep marks their acceptance of this fate. Some viewers might see this as a love story: two people choosing to face their demons together, stronger as one. I couldn’t see it that way. To me, it was tragic. Millie had been resentful, Tim had refused to seek help, their communication was broken. They weren’t healing together—they were collapsing into each other.

That’s what made the film linger with me. Because Together isn’t really about cults, supernatural caves or Greek mythology. It’s about relationships. The messy ones. The ones where you stay because you’re afraid of leaving, or where you hope marriage or a move will fix everything, but the problems just follow. Millie’s avoidant, Tim’s anxiously attached, and the entity binding them is nothing more than fear of being alone.

And that’s where I find myself stuck in contradiction. Are we better when we’re with someone—even if it’s hard—or should we protect individuality above all else? Is love worth the mess, or is being single the safer, saner choice? The film doesn’t answer. It just fuses two people together and lets us squirm at the result.

Maybe that’s the point. Relationships don’t have neat answers either.

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Behind the Scenes:  The Art (and Pain) of Prosthetics

Michael Shanks is directing Alison and Dave on set

Working on a film heavy with prosthetics is never glamorous—it’s gruelling. For prosthetics teams, actors, and even assistant directors, it means longer days, slower setups, and a constant test of patience. Together leaned fully into body horror, which meant Dave Franco and Alison Brie spent hours physically fused in prosthetic rigs. Bathroom breaks? Forget privacy—they had to navigate them together. This wasn’t just acting chemistry; it was physical endurance.

The final fusion sequence pushed the makeup and VFX departments into true collaboration. To sell the illusion of “Tillie”—Dave and Alison merging into one—the makeup team built a prosthetic framework that blended their bodies, then carefully layered details to trick the eye. On Alison, they applied Dave’s eyebrows, a brunette wig, and brown contact lenses to align her look with his features. Then, in a clever hybrid of practical and digital, Dave was filmed separately with motion tracking dots on his face. His jawline and lips were digitally composited onto Alison’s face, creating a seamless and unsettling fusion. The result feels uncanny precisely because it straddles the line between real prosthetic texture and digital precision.

What’s remarkable here is how restraint was key. Too much digital, and the fusion looks rubbery and fake; too much prosthetic, and the movement feels stiff. By blending both, director Michael Shanks gave the audience something disturbingly tactile—skin that looked touchable, but wrong. For actors, though, the cost was high. Hours locked into prosthetics meant they had to live inside their characters’ claustrophobic co-dependency. That discomfort isn’t just visible—it’s palpable on screen.

For filmmakers and students, Together is a lesson in collaboration across departments. Prosthetics create the base reality, VFX refine the illusion, and the AD team keeps the impossible schedule from falling apart. When it works, as it does here, horror doesn’t just shock—it sticks with you long after the credits.

If you’re diving into filmmaking, study Together’s balance of prosthetics and digital effects. It’s a reminder that horror often works best when it’s grounded in the physical, then enhanced—never replaced—by the digital.

If body horror is your thing, don’t miss my review of the Academy Award–nominated The Substance—a film that takes transformation to terrifying new heights