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Now Playing: In the body horror movie ‘Together,’ breaking up is hard to do
By: Gordon Briggs
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I call them “couples horror” films.
There are recent movies like Midsommar, The Invisible Man, Strange Darlings, and Companion that tell the story of a couple’s break-up, only these movies are told through the lens of horror. In that context, I want to praise the film Together, a skillful blend of horror and romantic comedy, told through the story of couples that are both figuratively and literally trying to separate from one another.
First, there’s the setup. Here, we follow Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Allison Brie) as they move away from their friends and family in the city to a more remote country town, where, after venturing into a mysterious underground cavern, they suddenly find themselves desperately, uncontrollably drawn to each other. From that summary, we can understand that this is clearly a story about codependency, or to put it another way, this is a story about two people who want to separate from each other, but their bodies will not allow it.
The more the two try to physically and emotionally detach from one another, the more the skin fuses, as if they were magnetically locked together by nature itself. Some of that body horror imagery may turn off some viewers. This is a movie where flesh tears, skin rips, and blood spurts out in large quantities.
The more graphic content could be depressing if it weren’t for the film’s dark sense of humor. Like many other recent horror films, Together doesn’t just want to gross us out; it wants to make us laugh. As the two characters’ bodies become more uncomfortably attached to one another, Franco and Brie engage in plenty of humorous banter about which part of their body they should slice off in order to separate.
Even if blood and gore aren’t your bag, the two leads do come across as a believable couple who share the same anxieties that anyone who has been in a relationship would have.
Beyond the horror elements, the film delves into some uncomfortable questions that anyone who has been in a relationship can relate to. Specifically, “How much of myself do I want to give to someone else?”