Review: Alison Brie And Dave Franco Melt Into Themselves In 'Together'

HOLLYWOOD, CA — In “Together,” Michael Shanks’ chilling and brilliant debut, Alison Brie and Dave Franco star in a visceral chamber piece laced with supernatural body horror. The two, married in real life, portray a stagnating relationship buckling under the pressure of things left unsaid.

They don’t scream. They unravel.

As years of affection erode, they don’t simply drift apart — they dissolve, slipping into a slow-burning nightmare of co-dependence, paranoia, and the quiet terror of intimacy.

The film explores how connection can turn claustrophobic when identity gets lost in love. It’s an unnerving experience.

Enter Millie (Brie) and Tim (Franco), relocating to the countryside for Millie’s promising career — a fresh start for her, a derailment for him. Old resentments surface. Conversations curdle. Yet, they persist — both too stubborn and scared to confront the growing tumult.

Everything shifts when a hike in the woods takes an eerie turn, leaving them trapped in a mysterious cave — a snare that turns their love into a tangle of flesh and fear, comforting at first... ravenous by the end. At long last, they confront the fissures in their fractured relationship.

Get ready to laugh and squirm as Tim's reality unravels. Surreal sequences reveal the fault lines in his psyche. With every effort to break free from Millie, the horror mutates, reflecting the decaying intimacy of codependency. The deeper he falls, the harder it becomes to claw his way out.

Despite all its weighty ideas, the film leans into emotional restraint. Dialogue is minimal, mirroring Millie and Tim’s struggle to connect. This silence adds tension but sometimes leaves scenes feeling hollow.

Brie and Franco deliver a hypnotic duet. Their performances don’t just deepen the film’s surreal descent — they sustain a rhythm of unease that lingers well beyond the credits. Brie imbues Millie with brittle bravado: chilling, yet tender in its collapse. Franco, meanwhile, carves Tim from quiet resentment and aching vulnerability. His hunched posture and icy stares speak volumes of a love curdling. Together, they don’t merely portray lovers in crisis — they inhabit them.

The real-life couple bare their ruptures in performances that evoke Cronenberg by way of couples therapy. Their intimacy isn’t stylized; it’s bruised, messy, and real, defining the film’s elegant restraint with every haunted glance and hollow silence.

“Together” thrives on Shanks’ taut, visceral direction, and propulsive storytelling, blending surreal horror with emotional urgency and black comedy. Echoes of Cronenberg ripple through the film’s body-centric unease, calling to mind “The Brood” and “Dead Ringers.”

This is horror not of screams but of scars — where memory mutates into flesh, and trauma grows a spine. Shanks’ momentum occasionally eclipses the introspection his story craves, but the emotional rot remains palpably unnerving.

As Cornel Wilczek's score intensifies, its intricately layered soundscape twists and warps around the couple’s deteriorating bond, while Germain McMicking’s cinematography carves visual dissonance — layering idyllic calm against creeping dread to mirror the emotional descent.

“Together” doesn’t scream — it whispers with a voice that lingers like a scream. It's hypnotic, chilling and brilliant.