“THE opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference,” wrote world-renowned author Elie Wiesel.
A similar pang of crushing discomfort from a love fading runs through body horror Together about a codependent relationship. A lack of attentiveness allows a mysterious, unnatural force threaten to corrupt a young couple’s lives, love, and even their flesh.
Starring real-life husband and wife Dave Franco (Tim) and Alison Brie (Millie), the pair are already questioning their outwardly perfect union when they leave hipster city life behind for unfamiliar country solitude. They move for Millie’s job — she’s the grown up in this cute coupling.
Tim, now in his thirties, is still holding onto teenage dreams of rock stardom, with his emotional growth not developing much beyond moody angst. Millie comes off more like his mom than his life partner, driving Tim to the train station when he does get the offer of a gig, and holding his hand at every difficult juncture in their relationship.
The pair are coming apart at the seams, and rather than strengthen their bond, the move to the countryside speeds up their journey on the road to demise. Tim loses any sense of self as his deteriorating mental state gives Millie serious cause for concern about their future together.
New from first-time writer and director Michael Shanks, Together is a body horror brimming over with clingy emotions, twisted and trippy effects, and a plot that manages to break free of all the usual doomed romance tropes.
It’s not often that you find anything remotely original in the body horror sub-genre either, but Shanks has done so in spades. He’s delivered one of the year’s finest films about the fear of commitment with gelatinous aplomb. Together is tense, beautiful, funny and downright weird in its perverse study of what lurks behind the lovey-dovey exterior of commitment and devotion.
Just like its subject matter, Shanks’ film is often icky and excruciating, while profoundly human at every turn.
Breaking up, we discover, is very hard to do.
(5/5)
