Some of the most disturbing sequences in film history have festered from that old familiar wound: love gone wrong. Shelly Duvall fending off a deranged Jack Nicholson with a baseball bat; Sam Neil berating Isabelle Adjani as blood spills down her chin; John Cassavetes pimping out Mia Farrow to Satan himself. But what of codependence, an intangible, emotional reliance on someone that can suffocate both parties? Jealous, murderous, possessed spouses lend themselves well to cinema, but glimpses of a couple gulping up each other’s daily air is trickier to convey.
For his feature debut, Together, writer-director Michael Shanks mined the anxieties of his own 16-year relationship, which began when he was barely out of high school. “You kind of realize, I have never experienced a life without this person. I don’t know who I am without her,” Shanks told IndieWire earlier this year. “We eat the same food, have the same friends, breathe the same air.…It’s kind of hard to tell where I end and she begins.”
Such is the very literal conceit of Together, a body horror flick starring real-life married couple Allison Brie and Dave Franco. The actors, who also produced the film, feigned mystery while promoting Together after its riotous Sundance reception; reports of squealing crowds circulated, and it became the first official sale out of the festival. Current posters boast the rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. But Shanks’ and his stars’ reluctance to spoil or reveal much about the plot is undercut by every piece of promo material: lashes from two distinct eyelids fuse together in the initial teaser clip; two sets of lips bond to one another in fleshy communion; even the title letters squish inward, obliterating the space between their serifs. Whatever you’re thinking… that’s the whole plot.
Which is: Longtime couple Millie (Brie) and Tim (Franco) are abandoning their city life to settle in a small town, isolating them from a shared community and ripping Tim away from his faltering music career. As Millie adjusts to teaching at a new elementary school, Tim becomes increasingly disturbed by their new home, tormented by prior family trauma and his dependence on Millie; he is unemployed and cannot drive. One day, after hiking a local trail, Millie and Tim drink from a magical water source that triggers some harrowing side effects. As time wears on, Tim’s once-avoidant behavior mutates into crippling codependence, and the couple struggle to separate for more than a few moments. Feel free to interpret that figuratively, or literally, or both.
In Together, we witness the hideous and sacred sides of devotion, interdependence, and absolute commitment. But the crux of the film is a metaphor that is so literal, it feels like Shanks jotted the central concept on a napkin but didn’t bother to flesh out his characters or the world they inhabit. Brie and Franco strangely have little chemistry onscreen, despite their immense skill and charisma as individual actors. This might be due to their flimsy roles: Millie is a schoolteacher who wants to make a difference in kids’ lives. Tim is a jobless 35-year-old musician with a hipster mullet (one that seems to be humorously fashioned after Shanks’). Aside from a long-running dry spell in the bedroom, we’re only given the faintest impressions of their problems, of their personalities. There is little texture of a life lived together.
Together’s cast and special effects department alone could make for a substantive horror classic, but the script is freighted with distracting cliches and errant plot developments. Tim’s family trauma, while prompting some delightfully repulsive SFX, seems to exist only for that reason, or to give the film an additional whiff of dread. I believe the line, “He’s been through a lot,” was uttered more than once by Millie or one of her friends. The whole thing reminded me of the opening tragedy in Midsommar, except that event provides so much drive and necessary context for the main character. Tim’s dark family secret feels more like a gruesome invention purely for ambiance. Shanks has since explained the scene as a metaphor intended to justify Tim’s avoidance in his relationship. But onscreen it translates more as a contemporary horror trend.
Shanks’ devotion to practical effects is easily the best thing about Together, one he displays through visceral prosthetics and visual references to some of the SFX greats. In an early scene, a pair of ill-fated dogs mutate in a kennel; it’s impossible not to think of the husky sequence in John Carpenter’s The Thing, which featured pioneering effects work by industry legends Rob Bottin and Stan Winston. When Tim discovers a dying rat nesting in a light fixture, we witness a writhing, fur-covered, animatronic thing—not a glossy CGI rendering. A visual effects alum, Shanks understands that tangible phenomena often clutch at a deeper sense of fear, within the actors and ultimately the audience.
One of the most effectively frightening gags in the movie is little more than an actor in ghoulish makeup tunneling under a bedsheet. The more corporeal set pieces involving Brie and Franco are delightfully gross, and were especially taxing to shoot. (Note: unambiguous spoilers ahead.) “There were days you were stuck together for five hours,” Shanks said to Franco and Brie during the post-premiere Q&A at Sundance. “We were going to the bathroom together,” Franco interjected, a testament to the bodily intimacy demanded by the film, as well as their physical exertion.
Brie and Franco shine as physical actors who are willing to put themselves through the ringer to express anguish. The couple frequently left the set with bruises and welts stamped across their skin. On one particular day, Shanks had a stunt double on hand while shooting a shower scene where Tim is thrashed around by a mysterious force. But the double did little more than pace around the set in a towel as Franco chose to repeatedly hurl himself into tiled walls. Cinematographer Germain McMicking captures it expertly; Franco’s skin presses against glass in the sickly green light of the bathroom, recalling the photorealistic canvases of Jenny Saville. McMicking’s painterly rendering of flesh is a highlight of the film. In a later scene, as Millie rattles her head against a pebbled glass door, the reds and pinks reminded me of a Francis Bacon triptych.
For all of its supposed emotional subtext, Together has a slightly cynical patina to it that glints with every low-hanging joke or unjustified horror trope. One cliche reveals itself toward the end of the film, or much earlier, when you guess it. It’s to do with the provenance of Millie and Tim’s mysterious affliction…a source that makes absolutely no sense, when you ask yourself what the antagonists’ motive could be. And then there is a very specific song cue, one you will also guess long before it arrives. Shanks admitted to spending the entire music budget on the rights to it, which speaks to the great importance he’s placed on a throwaway pun. It doesn’t help that the song plays over the worst, and most CGI-smothered SFX shot in the entire film. Together is a fun, grotesque addition to the recent body horror revival, but it fails to present characters of flesh and blood.