‘Together’: Sundance Review

Dir/scr: Michael Shanks. Australia/US. 2025. 101mins

Viewers who’ve ever been in a relationship with somebody who was just a little too clingy ought to sympathise — and squirm — throughout writer-director Michael Shanks’ function debut, a horror-comedy that works higher the extra twisted and stomach-churning it turns into. Collectively stars real-life spouse and husband Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a stagnant couple who’re uncovered to an odd substance that creates a disturbingly highly effective magnetic attraction between them. (Actually, they’ve a troublesome time not getting caught collectively.)

A date night time prospect for {couples} with a demented sense of humour

The metaphors on this absurdist slice of body-horror couldn’t be much less refined, and within the early going the obviousness of the story’s themes threaten to undermine the potential suspense. Finally, although, Collectively comes collectively, largely due to the properly comedian lead performances.

Premiering in Sundance’s Midnight part, this crowd-pleasing image will enchantment to style followers, particularly those that choose their horror amusingly (and generally nauseatingly) excessive. Brie and Franco, who additionally function producers, lend star energy, and the movie’s catchy conceit might make this a enjoyable date-night prospect for {couples} with a demented sense of humour.

In Collectively’s opening scenes, devoted grade-school instructor Millie (Brie) and her flailing musician boyfriend Tim (Franco) are about to maneuver out to the nation for her new job, a sacrifice Tim is reluctantly making for her. They’ve been collectively a very long time, and their intercourse life has vanished. Millie is starting to resent her boyfriend’s infantile deal with his unrealistic rock ‘n’ roll goals. Someday whereas mountaineering within the close by woods, they fall right into a crevasse and are trapped. Desperately thirsty, Tim drinks from an odd pool of water, and once they handle to make their manner again house, he retains getting glued to Millie at any time when they  contact.

As one would possibly surmise, Shanks has arrange this horror situation to be a wry commentary on co-dependency, reworking Tim’s neediness right into a weird bodily illness. However the issue includes extra than simply their our bodies touching — when Millie drives away from the home by herself, Tim involuntarily strikes within the course during which she’s driving, nearly as if she’s controlling him remotely. At first, solely Tim experiences this bizarre phenomenon, however finally Millie additionally contracts the sickness, forcing them to work collectively as a pair in a manner they haven’t in years.

The screenplay incessantly suffers from questionable leaps of logic to be able to ratchet up the suspense. Too typically within the movie’s early reels, Tim or Millie will act foolishly or out of character, which undercuts the horror of Tim’s inexplicable situation. Tthis tendency decreases in Collectively’s much-stronger second half. the place Shanks takes greater dangers and amplifies the darkish humour. The technique first pays off throughout a memorable scene during which the couple have a quickie within the toilet at Millie’s faculty, the place the aftermath leads to among the finest (and most painful) slapstick intercourse jokes since There’s One thing About Mary. That laugh-out-loud set piece units the tone for every part that follows — Collectively stops focusing a lot on its trite themes and, as an alternative, delivers a number of sequences of gross-out body-horror which can be persistently humorous due to how straight-faced Brie and Franco play these ridiculous conditions.

Franco portrays a floundering, insecure beta male who feels that his profitable girlfriend calls the pictures of their relationship. His goofball power proves important in including irreverent humour to Collectively’s extra grotesque moments. By comparability, Millie is grounded and accountable, rapidly dropping curiosity in her immature boyfriend, and Brie finds some emotional shading for a girl who’s beginning to realise that she and her real love have drifted aside. The actors’ on-screen rapport is nice and loving, and so they lean into deadpan as soon as Collectively will get bloodier and more and more extra outrageous.

As is usually the case with horror movies involving supernatural occurrences, Collectively stumbles a bit when explaining exactly what’s going on. The reveals are each convoluted and unsatisfying, however by that time, audiences in all probability received’t care a lot a couple of wobbly plot that’s principally an excuse to place Millie and Tim by way of the wringer of shocks and scares. For a presumably low-budget challenge, the results and make-up work are compelling, to not point out disgusting. And though Collectively in the end doesn’t have a lot that’s new to say about long-term dedication, Shanks and his solid land on an ending that’s intelligent and clever in regards to the challenges of calling it quits. Because the movie suggests, generally it’s greatest for {couples} to simply stick collectively.