TOGETHER
(director/writer: Michael Shanks; cinematographer: Germain McMicking; editor: Sean Lahiff; music: Cornel Wilczek; cast: Dave Franco (Tim), Alison Brie (Millie), Jack Kenny (Luke), Damon Herriman (Jamie), Karl Richmond (Jordy), Aljin Abella (local doctor); Runtime: 102; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Erik Feig, Julia Hammer, Tim Headington, Max Silva, Andrew Mittman, Mike Cowap; Neon; 2025)
“Slick comedy that enjoyably blends together body horror and romantic comedy.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Aussie director and writer Michael Shanks makes his feature film debut in this slick comedy that blends together body horror and romantic comedy. It stars Alison Brie and Dave Franco, a real-life married couple. In the film, they play Millie and Tim, a dysfunctional couple who always act ‘together’ as one and wind up in a sticky situation.
To Tim’s chagrin, Millie is the boss of the family. She’s the one with a job as a teacher, while he’s the deadbeat who only dreams of getting a gig as a musician. The couple move to a small town outside NYC (Victoria, Australia subbing for the NY suburban town). This handicaps Tim because he can’t drive.
There’s a prologue of searchers in the lush forest where the couple just moved to that paves the way for the film’s horror story to kick in. Dogs sniff out an insidious entity buried in a cave. When going underground, the dogs reappear bloodied and behaving strangely.
Things begin to look up when Millie’s brother Luke (Jack Kenny) comes to the rescue and invites Tim to join his band as a guitarist, as Tim takes the train into the city to play with them.
At the small town school, Millie’s unctuous fellow teacher Jamie (Damon Herriman) tells her only the beautiful things about the gorgeous looking woodland community and not about a missing couple or of the hippie religious chapel that was buried in the ground.
While one day trying to find shelter during a rainstorm, the couple end up falling into a pit. They are stuck there overnight, and he drinks the murky ground water. They wake up to find their legs glued together by a strong gooey webbing, that makes separation painful.
The over-excited Tim, influenced by the glue bonding, has sticky sex with Millie in the school restroom.
From here-on Tim can’t stop twitching, as he turns into an uncontrollable sex freak.
Any kind of contact between Tim and Millie leaves them stuck together. Any attempt to separate them is difficult and painful.
These set-pieces blend comedy into a horror story. Adding additional flavor is the electric saw Tim unpacks when moving in, as a way of using it will be found.
The physical comedy works best if willing to go with all its absurdities.
It played at the Sundance Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 2/9/2025 GRADE: B-
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