‘Together’ Review: Alison Brie and Dave Franco Get Gross (and Close) in Delightfully Queasy Body Horror

Sundance: Michael Shanks' feature debut mashes up (quite literally) heartfelt relationship drama and icky body horror, to crowd-pleasing (and -screaming) effect.

Two statements made in the opening act of Michael Shanks’ queasy, mostly clever feature filmmaking debut “Together” will come to haunt both its stars and audience: 1. That “everyone knows” Tim (Dave Franco) needs his girlfriend Millie (Franco’s real-life wife Alison Brie) more than she needs him, and 2. If they split later, it will just hurt more. And, oh boy, does Shanks — and his very game stars and producers — take those seemingly trite relationship observations to wild ends over the course of this delightfully unhinged spin on the body horror joint.

We first meet Millie and Tim as they are about to move from metropolitan Melbourne to the Aussie countryside. Schoolteacher Millie has been offered a good gig at a cozy, small town school, marking seemingly the first time the long-time (but pointedly not married) couple have made any big changes to accommodate Millie’s dreams. Sure, Tim is still trying to make it as a musician, but his relatively advanced age (rock tours are for the youngsters or the incredibly rich, neither of which Tim is) doesn’t scream “next big thing!” anymore, and the emotional hangover from the horrific deaths of his parents (real nightmare fodder, for him and the audience) aren’t helping matters. Thus: move to the country!

What Millie and Tim don’t know — and what, crucially, the audience does, care of a jumpy, sticky opening that lets us in on some pre-move events in the couple’s soon-to-be home — is that the bucolic area they’re decamping to is far more, well, bubonic. Let’s put it this way: no one should ever drink stagnant water of any kind, and you sure as hell shouldn’t do it at the bottom of a creepy cave filled with half-smashed church pews and all manner of squishy substances. Millie and Tim are going to learn that the very hard way.

There’s something amiss before they make it to said creepy cave, however, as the pair’s first day in their lovely new house is marked by the discovery of a fetid, not-entirely-dead rat king stuffed above a piping hot light fixture. Later, Tim will be able to draw a line between that discovery — to be sure, a screamingly fucked-up jump scare that should leave audiences yelping and tittering in equal measure — and another rodent-based find from his youth. Franco brings a compelling darkness to Tim, first presented as a bit of a sad boy, before transforming into something entirely different. And Millie? Brie portrays her as a sensitive, kind soul with a fast-approaching limit. Millie wants answers, and she’s gonna get ’em.

No one’s imagining that a simple hike through the trails that dot the countryside behind their house is going to fully fix Millie and Tim’s simmering relationship issues, but it’s a start, right? Shanks’ script, imaginative as it is, doesn’t get too caught up in obscuring what’s to come (listen, it’s right there in the title), instead placing more weight (and delight) on unraveling how we’re going to get there. No, no one should drink stagnant water from a creepy cave, but “Together” doesn’t work unless Millie and Tim do, and then we can get on with the rest of it.

And what a rest of it it is! Eventually freed from the cave, a very not-good-feeling Tim is first to notice something is wrong. Mostly, he can’t be away from Millie anymore, literally. He feels ill, jittery, confused, out of body when she gets too far, and for a dude who saw his parents shuffle off this mortal coil due to mental illness, that’s double scary. He tries everything, a frantic Franco zipping between pharmaceutical aids and some very ill-advised Facebook stalking, while an alternately worried and angry Brie both monitors the situation and tries to get away from it. Tim needs her more than she needs him. And maybe they should have split earlier, because it’s just going to hurt more now.

Of some assistance: a sly Damon Herriman, cast here as Millie’s fellow teacher Jamie. Is Jamie interested in Millie romantically? Is he just a nice dude? What’s up with his relationship status? Why does he seem to be the only person paying attention to the new couple? Why does he know so much about that damned dirty cave? And what the hell is going on with those wedding photos in his house? The answers to all those questions (and more!) will come, and the giddy, gross pleasures of “Together” will, too.

Shanks’ often transparent scene-setting mostly serves as an additive to the fun of the film, from the first appearance to a tiny electric saw (might as well call it Chekhov’s Tiny Electric Saw) to those bold opening scenes that don’t hide what’s to come, but that tends to add to the joy of watching the film, those edgy expectations, that desire to guess what’s coming next (and the delight when you’re right).

And while it’s easy to poke holes in some of the logic Shanks’ script seems to think is baked right in — without spoiling too much, we’ve got a lot of questions about how much the wider community is clued into what’s really happening, plus still more queries about the physical (and, yes, sexual) implications of much of it — in the moment, it’s hard not to get pulled into the spectacle, stuck to the story, really connected to this crowd-pleasing (and -screaming) little ditty of a midnight treat.

Grade: B

“Together” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Neon purchased it for U.S. distribution at the festival.

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