Together Review

Together (2025) Review: A Body Horror Film That Delivers in Ambiance but Fails to Deliver a Coherent Story A Codependent Tale Wrapped in Horror

At the beginning of the movie, we open on a search party led by residents of the future town our couple is set to move to. The group is looking for a missing couple, as revealed by a flyer shown onscreen. We learn they disappeared during a hike in the woods. Two search dogs, combing through the forest, fall into a cave. Inside, they wander through an underground water system and lagoon, where they drink the water. One of the searchers, who owns the dogs, calls out for them. When he finally finds them, he notices their strange behavior after exiting the cave.

That night, he puts them to bed in the garage. Later, his daughter hears unsettling sounds coming from outside. When the man investigates, shining a flashlight on the dogs, we are met with a grotesque image. The screen cuts to black, the main title appears, and the film truly begins.

Together (2025), a body horror film from NEON, stars real life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie. They have been together for about ten years, and the movie picks up during a rough patch in their relationship. They are on the brink of making a major decision to move out of the city. Millie believes a fresh start might help them reconnect, especially since their intimacy and emotional connection have been dwindling.

Right from the start, it is clear that neither Millie nor Tim is fully committed to the relationship anymore. Tim, a musician recently dropped from his label while chasing his rock star dreams, is reluctant to leave the city and the people he knows. He does not drive, he is unsure of how to take care of himself, and he is visibly anxious about change. Millie, on the other hand, is more grounded, a schoolteacher who simply wants stability. She hopes marriage and a new beginning might fix their issues.

Let me start by saying this film scared me. I felt unnerved at times and was on the edge of my seat. Together delivers in ambiance but fails to deliver a coherent story. It centers around a couple who have grown codependent on each other, not knowing how to communicate or navigate the bumps and stages that come along with a long relationship, let us say of about ten years. Certain scenes point out that these two individuals, who are in their early thirties, were not fully mature or developed adults when they met and failed to develop as individuals during that time. Instead, they grew more and more codependent.

Yes, folks, this film is tackling codependency. In certain scenes, the film points out that Tim does not know how to drive and later reveals that Millie does not know how to cook. It is sort of a trade off thing. They basically cannot function without each other, but both really do not like each other anymore. At the same time, they are obsessed with one another because they do not know any other way.

At their farewell party at the start of the film, Millie awkwardly proposes to Tim in front of their friends. It is a painfully uncomfortable scene that delivers heavy second hand embarrassment. Later that night, as they lie in bed, Millie asks Tim if he still loves her and wants to be with her. The line between psychological horror and reality begins to blur. She tells Tim she cannot sleep with “them” watching. The camera pans to the end of the bed, revealing two demonic looking figures, a moment that is both jarring and deeply unnerving, a result of Tim’s trauma and anxiety.

We then transition to the couple’s new home, a secluded suburban town about two hours away from the city. Upon arriving, Tim immediately notices a foul smell in the house. He asks Millie if she smells it too, but she does not respond. She is upstairs. He assumes she cannot smell it, so he investigates. The scent leads him to a ceiling light fixture. Tim removes the fixture, reaches into the ceiling, and pulls out four rats conjoined at the tails, a disturbing, visceral image that sets the tone for the rest of the film.

At Millie’s new job, we are introduced to Mr. Jamie, a fellow teacher. From the start, he seems overly friendly and possibly flirtatious. He reveals he lives nearby in the yellow house on the corner and asks Millie if she is seeing anyone. Millie hesitantly refers to Tim as her “boy partner,” an awkward and telling choice of words. Mr. Jamie invites them to join him for a hike on the local trails, but their conversation is cut short by the school bell.

In the following scenes, Tim and Millie discuss the strange rat discovery. Millie questions how Tim even knew where to look. Tim then shares a memory from his childhood. When he would come home from school, his dad would often yell at him to clean his room because of a bad smell. Tim never noticed the odor himself, but he would clean anyway. His dad continued to complain until one day, Tim came home to find his father standing silently in the middle of the room, staring at something.

He had finally found where the odor was coming from, a dead rat inside the light fixture. Every time Tim turned on the light, it would slowly cook the rat. Because Tim spent so much time in the room, he never noticed the smell. He had become used to it.

Then, the film transitions seemingly at random into a scene that gives us a deeper look into Tim’s past. We see a memory of him entering his parents’ bedroom. His father had passed away, and his mother, unable to cope, had suffered a psychological break. She sat beside her husband’s corpse in shock, unable or unwilling to move the body. It remained there until it began to rot.

Tim explains to Millie that just like he had become used to the smell of the rat, he had lived with the smell of his father’s decaying body. He says he never told her about it before because he had genuinely forgotten until moving into their new home and encountering the rat triggered the memory.

This entire sequence really broke the film for me. It came out of nowhere. There was no buildup, just a random shift from the dream sequence at the beginning of the film, showing Millie and Tim in bed, to this deeply traumatic flashback. I am not even sure if the payoff was worth it. Including this scene did nothing to enhance the story. If anything, it just further showed that Tim was in no position to be dating Millie, especially with his severe anxiety and what seems to be PTSD from his past. It reinforced that he was a deeply broken man.

Moving past that, I really did enjoy the film. It was entertaining, but the script and direction of the story are where the film fails. For the first half, it builds a concrete and solid story, but halfway through, the plot does a full 180 because it realizes it needs a villain and an antagonist. Up to that point, it almost seems like Millie might be the antagonist. But it turns out it is Mr. Jamie, her coworker, who, despite initial flirtation, turns out to be gay and is actually part of a cult. You can see the cult aspect in the bells and pews along the underground cave and forest, but the way Mr. Jamie’s character is set up is completely vague. I am not sure if it is on purpose, but even if it was, it does not pay off.

I guess the twist is kind of good since it is not predictable, probably too unpredictable for its own good, because it feels like they were going in a whole different direction with it. But the film is predictable in the sense that it is telling another cult centric, artsy horror story, which is okay, but it does not build it up properly. It is like one of those horror moral films that has a message to deliver and is more focused on art and commentary than coherent lore. It is almost like the film is saying, “Listen to what I have to say, do not pay attention to the details, they do not matter.”

To its credit, the body horror visuals and practical effects are incredibly effective. Critics have pointed out that Together may not quite hit Cronenberg levels of gross out artistry, but it comes impressively close, especially with a limited budget. A grotesque cave sequence, a sinewy film bonding their legs, and a bathroom stall tryst that is somehow comedic, repulsive, and tragic at the same time all elevate the film’s genre ambitions beyond surface level shock.

Now the ending, there is not really a happy one. Or rather, the script did not allow for one. The way I read it, Millie and Tim did not love each other anymore. Sure, maybe they cared for one another and had empathy, but their love was just a casualty. It had fizzled. Millie literally says, “What guy would do that?” referring to the record store moment from their past. Her whole perspective of Tim was built on that one memory.

At the end of the film, they try to escape from one another. Millie tells Tim, “This will happen no matter what. You can either do it the right way or the hard way.” This moment parallels what we saw with the hikers, the original missing couple, in the cave, with Jamie slicing Millie’s arm to make her bleed, forcing Tim to act. Tim ultimately agrees to merge with Millie to save her, not because he wants to, but because he cannot bear to see her die.

This kind of situation has two ways to be seen. One is the romanticized version, that relationships have ups and downs, and if you love someone, you will stay and work through it. You do not throw away years, especially if you have kids or a life together. But the way I see it, and the way this film seems to present it, is more about emotional entrapment. When you have been with someone so long that your identities blur, and neither of you knows how to leave. When love becomes obligation. When you confuse comfort with connection. You stay because you do not know what else there is.

That is part of what makes Together such a fitting horror film. It understands how scary love can be when it no longer frees you, but binds you. The couple’s transformation into one being, grotesquely literalized in the final act, becomes the ultimate metaphor for a toxic commitment where you “cannot live without each other,” even if you should.

Something that came to my head during the ending was how, in real life, some couples threaten self harm or manipulation if the other tries to leave. Not because they love each other, but because they cannot live without the dynamic they have grown dependent on. That is what Tim does. He finally agrees to merge, not for love, but because he sees no other way.

And then there is the ending scene. When Millie’s parents come for dinner and this new person answers the door, a merged being I will call “Timlie,” it is a nonbinary, intersex version of them with Millie’s body, Tim’s hair and eyebrows, and his voice. I am sorry, but it looked stupid. It made me laugh. I just could not take it seriously. I would have preferred a more subtle ending, maybe just showing their hands with wedding rings or even a return to the cult’s bell symbol. The creature design just raised too many questions and did not have the world building to support it.

Another major thread worth noting is religion. Jamie tells Millie that the only way their problems will go away is by becoming one divine being. This can be interpreted in many ways, but I saw it as a critique of marriage and the institutionalization of faith. Sometimes religion is pushed as a fix all, but that does not mean it is right for everyone. Millie thought marriage would fix everything, but the film shows us that conforming to that structure only led to more damage. And in the end, Tim “signs” himself over to it, quite literally.

Okay, my final thoughts, both were obviously to blame. They had baggage, no communication, and they needed to grow separately. But if I had to choose a villain, it was Millie. She was pushy, hostile, always trying to fix Tim without trying to understand him. The poor guy had trauma, and what they needed was space, not fusion.

And here is another thing. When “Timlie” answers the door, it looks more like Millie than Tim. If that does not say she wanted this more, and he just gave in, I do not know what does.

In the end, Together is a movie that I think was awesome. It is a good movie, just do not dwell on it too much. Read a synopsis beforehand to better appreciate what it is trying to do. Visually and atmospherically, it delivers horror, some of the best I have seen in a while. The emotional horror, that is where it hits hardest, even if clumsily.

Compared to another big horror film of the year, Sinners, which is 10 out of 10 for story but not scary at all, Together flips that. Horror, 9 out of 10. Story, 6 out of 10. Still a good watch. Still entertaining. That is already a check in my book. Do not just take it from me, go check it out for yourself. It will not disappoint.