The Movie Together is Indie Craziness. Every so often, a film sneaks up and wrenches you out of your comfort zone—then laughs in your face a bit. Together (2025) is one of those rare gems. This supernatural body‑horror romance, written and directed by Michael Shanks, stars real‑life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, who move to the countryside hoping to save their strained relationship—only to find themselves literally glued together by a mysterious force. It premiered at Sundance on January 26, 2025, and was released in the U.S. on July 30 via Neon. Since then, it’s been capturing attention for its bold mix of horror, dark humor, romance, and gross‑out physicality.
Spoiler-Filled Walk-Through
Warning: Major spoilers ahead – I highly recommend you don’t continue unless you’ve already seen the movie. Millie Wilson thinks she’s getting a fresh start — new job teaching English in a sleepy countryside town, a cozy house, and a chance to patch things up with her longtime boyfriend, Tim Brassington, a struggling musician still emotionally adrift after losing his parents. But her big, romantic gesture at their going-away party — proposing to him in front of friends — lands with a thud. Tim freezes, she’s humiliated, and the cracks in their relationship only get deeper.
Then comes the cave. On a rainy hike, the two slip inside for shelter. Tim drinks from a strange, shimmering pool and gets hit with a nightmare flashback — walking in on his mom in bed with his dad’s decaying corpse (yep, you read that right). And when they wake up, their legs are literally stuck together. They manage to separate, laugh it off, and pretend it didn’t happen. As one does. Soon though – Tim’s body is acting like a clingy poltergeist, dragging him toward Millie against his will.
Enter Jamie McCabe, Millie’s overly friendly coworker, who just happens to drop by for dinner. Benign, right? The couple shares their weird cave story, and Jamie casually drops that it used to be a New Age church before it collapsed. Yeah. Red flag much?
Things take a massively awkward turn when Tim’s “episodes” strike again — this time at Millie’s workplace. She corners him in the bathroom for sex – but their post-coital bliss becomes a full-on nightmare when they realize their genitals are fused together. Cue panic, screaming, and a desperate separation — just in time for Jamie to discover them there.
Millie later visits Jamie to smooth things over, opening up about her and Tim’s messy relationship. Jamie launches into Aristophanes’ theory about “other halves” and urges her not to let go of hers. Sweet, right? Except then he reminisces about his “late husband” in a way that’s… unsettling. Millie bolts when she sees a disoriented Tim wandering outside.
Tim, still freaked, goes to a doctor, who basically shrugs off what he tells him and hands him muscle relaxers. But when he learns a local couple, Simon and Keri, went missing… and that they visited the same exact cave Millie and he visited, he starts connecting dots. But, Millie isn’t buying it… until that is, they’re suddenly drawn together again in the middle of the night, limbs twisting and locking until their arms completely fuse. A frantic pill-popping spree stops the process — barely — and Millie ends up sawing them apart.
Tim says he’ll wait while she grabs the car keys from Jamie’s place, but instead, he heads back to the cave. What he finds there is nightmare fuel: Simon and Keri, fused into one grotesque body, with Simon’s half stabbed through the neck. Meanwhile, Millie’s visit to Jamie’s house turns into a horror show. She finds a wedding video of two men she doesn’t recognize, followed by footage of them fusing together in a ritual. The twist? Jamie is those two men, merged into one “whole.” He insists it’s bliss and wants Millie to do the same with Tim. When she refuses, he cuts her arm in the exact ritual style. She fights him off and escapes.
Reuniting in the driveway, Tim spills everything about the cave creature — how resisting the fusion created the monstrous Simon-Keri hybrid — and says he’s ready to kill himself to spare Millie. But when her wound starts to bleed out, he makes the ultimate sacrifice: he fuses his arm to hers, completing the process. They embrace, swaying to the Spice Girls’ “2 Become 1,” and slowly meld into a single, unified being. In the haunting final scene, Millie’s parents arrive for a Sunday visit. The cave’s strange symbol now hangs on the door. It opens to reveal… one androgynous person. Smiling. Whole. And very much Together.
Reasons We are Better Together
This isn’t just horror—it’s a literal physical manifestation of codependency. Tim and Millie’s emotional entanglement is transformed into horrifying physical reality, offering a grotesque but powerful metaphor on the screen, right in front of us. Is it possible that this might actually be a really romantic body-horror movie? Maybe?
Also, can I mention that casting Alison Brie and Dave Franco—an actual married couple—adds real authenticity to the film. Their easy rapport sells every bizarre physical moment and emotional beat. The trust between them lets the gore land with comedic precision and emotional weight. It makes a really absurd premise land with precision perfection.
I also loved that the fusion scenes are viscerally disturbing and yet utterly impressively crafted. They evoke Cronenberg and Carpenter with animatronics and prosthetics. Despite the grotesque imagery (stuck genitals, fused limbs), the film expertly threads humor throughout: ridiculous moments (child‑proof bottle struggles, absurd physical intimacy) turn cringe into brilliance. It’s horrifically hilarious.
Conclusion
Together is messy—in the best way possible. It dares to push boundaries of comfort and taste while still telling a moving story about love, fear, and the frightening idea of being stuck with someone forever. It’s romantic, horrifying, funny, sad, and unforgettable. If you’ve ever wondered what it means to love someone too much, this film gives you the answer—quite literally.
Edited by: CY
