Details on Together + drinks before below.
PREMISE
It feels inevitable that something like Together will earn comparisons to last year’s The Substance, purely off the fact that the horror it indulges in – that would be the body variety – escalates considerably leading into its wild climax. Sure, The Substance being a great example of body horror is all well and good, but the subsect of the genre has been around a long time, and many films of late have dabbled in such. So, why not a a millennial romantic comedy-cum-codependent relationship drama?
The debut feature from Melbourne-based writer/director Michael Shanks, Together bases itself around Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie), a seemingly in-love couple who are throwing a goodbye party of sorts when we meet them. Off the account of Millie accepting a job at a small school in the countryside, the pair are leaving their comfortable city digs, which has awoken something inside of Tim, as he looks at his less-than-fruitful music career and worries that he’ll feel even more disconnected from his passion the further he travels outside.
Shanks’s script has plenty to say on power dynamics in relationships and the co-dependent nature many fall into, but as he’s working within the horror genre, there’s also the lingering dread haunting Tim involving his deceased parents, who, as he relays, he found lifeless in their bedroom one night; flashes of this story giving way to some truly unsettling imagery throughout. Millie isn’t blind to the fact that Tim is clearly going through an emotional and psychological journey, but as his partner she’s also unafraid to state that she’s feeling ignored, and she’s hopeful that their move will serve as something of a reset for them.
Other than minimal neighbours – Damon Herrimen providing amusing support as Jamie, their sole neighbour and a fellow teacher at Millie’s new school – the couple are unplugged from the world, which could only be beneficial in their attempts to reconnect. The suggestion of fresh air and an afternoon hike begins the eventual descent however, with Tim and Millie stranded overnight in an underground cavern that they slip into as the woods that surround their house becomes overrun with torrential rain. It’s already an uneasy setting, what with all the church imagery seemingly built into the walls, and after they drink from the pool of water in its centre – which, naturally, is horror rule #1 on the list of things you shouldn’t do – they start to find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other. Literally.
If their body parts aren’t being fused together whenever they are close, they are hurling their bodies towards the other as they realise that some force is connecting them in the most visceral of manners. Two are literally becoming one – and yes, the Spice Girls reference is intentional – and Shanks has an awful amount of gross, body contorting fun in the process as Tim and Millie try to fight the other off. And it’s because of such fun that Together rises above being just another excursion in uncomfortable, squishy gore.
Aided by Franco and Brie’s chemistry – which, understandably, stems from the two being married in real life – Together is, first and foremost, very funny. And not the type of gross-out funny that can so often accompany body horror titles, but Shanks’s screenplay has an air of the relationship comedy about it as Tim and Millie make easy jokes at the other’s expense, self-aware quips, and, in what is sure to be one of the sequences everyone talks about, the correct terminology for certain drugs.
But those hoping for body horror won’t be disappointed, for as funny as Together is, it’s also suitably horrific in all the best ways possible. Next to the aforementioned imagery surrounding Tim’s deceased parents (which gives way to great scare), Together indulges in the gory possibilities of what two people will do when their bodies refuse to separate; without saying anything, one can guess how a set piece around handsaw can pan out. Franco and Brie are truly game for everything Shanks throws at them, and it’s because they’re both so committed as dramatic performers that the horror is sold even more convincingly.
A bombastically unsubtle commentary on how painful and restrictive a co-dependent relationship can be, Together is funny, tragic and disturbing in equal measure. Culminating in an image that’s as hilarious as it is horrific, Shanks, Franco and Brie have fused for another prime example of how the horror genre can give way to an emotional catharsis as it delights in the disgusting. (https://www.theaureview.com/watch/film-review-together/)
TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bqIwMH3En8
CINEMA TICKETS
https://www.myvue.com/book-tickets/summary/10030/HO00020291/296555
DRINKS
We can go for a drink before the movie at The Imperial.
SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN
12:00 - The Imperial, Leicester Street
12:30 - Vue Cinema London - West End (Leicester Square) - 3 Cranbourn St, London WC2H 7AL
ADDRESS AND DETAILS
Vue Cinema London - West End (Leicester Square) - 3 Cranbourn St, London WC2H 7AL
