If you’ve seen Alison Brie and Dave Franco together, you already know they have incredible chemistry. That much should be obvious, the two are a real-life couple who have shared the screen before. In interviews, they can practically finish one another’s sentences. They’re cute. Almost too cute. Well, that chemistry they hold is at the heart of Michael Shanks’ Sundance-debuting rom-com/body horror Together, one of the first body horrors I can think of that I could easily see as a film everyone could enjoy.
Most body horrors are so disturbing they can appeal only to the most hardcore of gore fans, but Together is entertaining and funny first, with a couple of effective jump scares to boot. But it’s the relationship between Franco and Brie’s characters, aspiring musician Tim and elementary school teacher Millie, that resonates most as they try to navigate their many years together and taking their partnership to the next level. Tim seems sorta lazy and adrift. He’s no longer on a record label and doesn’t know how to push forward. When Millie gets a new job at a new school hours away from the big city, Tim is more afraid than he lets on. Moving away means saying farewell to his dreams, once and for all. A disastrous farewell party ends with the two nearly throwing in the towel, but after a decade together neither can imagine being without the other.
Is that love? Or is it codependency? “We can split now, or it’ll be much harder later.” Little does Millie know how on-the-nose her suggestion will be soon after.
The new home sits in a mostly isolated neighborhood. While the place is nice, it also triggers some of Tim’s worst fears about his mental health, something possibly passed down by his mother. The discovery of a dead rat king cooking in the light of a ceiling fan is an ominous sign of things to come. While on a hike through the woods, they tumble into a hole and are trapped by a terrible rainstorm. Inside, they make a terrible discovery foreshadowed by a sinister mythological tale involving Zeus and the splitting of people in half so they are forever left to wander the Earth searching for the one who completes them.
Kinda puts a different spin on the idea of someone as your “better half” or “soulmate.” As Tim and Millie begin to be drawn together in a way that resembles a terrible curse, they are forced to confront whether they are truly meant to be together forever, and how far they’re willing to go to make that possible.
Shanks paces Together wonderfully, dropping in enough scares for the Midnight crowd, including some deft use of practical effects and lighting. But this isn’t a movie that gets too gross for its own good like many body horrors do. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scenes that are wildly uncomfortable. One, a sexual encounter in a school bathroom, will make everyone whince and cover their eyes. But much of what Millie and Tim go through is rooted in rooted in rom-com tropes, so the film is always entertaining first and foremost.
It’s Brie and Franco’s physical and comedic synchronicity that is so enjoyable to watch. They play off one another so well as their characters embark on a crazy, fantastical roller coaster of emotions, driven by their intense emotional connection. By the time Together makes clever (and apt) use of the Spice Girls hit “2 Become 1”, you just want to see these crazy kids stick together no matter what.
