Together (2025) Review
This week a new body horror film starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie titled Together makes its way into theaters. This is a film I didn’t know much about but heard fantastic buzz for it coming out of Sundance and SXSW. For a long time it had a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. What did I think about the film? Was the film as good as the early buzz? Let’s talk about it!
The Review
When I left the theater Tuesday night after seeing the film I thought to myself this film is going to polarize audiences. Some people are going to love this film (like it’s been proven” and there’s going to be a lot of people that leave the theater confused and disgusted by what they just saw and not like the film. As for me, I lean more towards the second option. I didn’t hate this film, there’s enough creativity in this film that I can’t call it bad. Considering the film’s initial glowing praise and a bunch of the praise I think the film will be getting I don’t think it’s great. The big comparison people have been making with this film is The Substance. Both are body horror films that use the body horror gimmick as a way to explore ideas and themes through the body horror. The Substance was exploring the idea of unrealistic beauty standards with body horror. Together is exploring a broken relationship through body horror. On almost every single level, I think The Substance was a better film that explored its ideas much better. Had The Substance not been released, then I think I’d like Together much more. When you have the comparison to The Substance that’s a much better film that got Oscar buzz, it’s hard not to draw the comparison.
I think what hurts Together is that it lacks shock value. What I mean by that is the film is very predictable. The film has a fairly small cast, IMDB lists only 20 actors in the film. Most of the characters are in one scene at the very beginning. There’s one character played by Damon Harriman who’s a prominent side character. I don’t wanna spoil anything but what they do with his character I found to be super predictable. When the film started to give answers in the third act, I didn’t 100% predict them but I was in the ball park and that’s frustrating. The film tried to be super clever with the answers but I found them predictable. Tied to that, the answers they do give took away some of the creepiness of the film. It leans into the fantasy cult angle that I didn’t think would work. As soon as they started to go in that direction I was very worried that it was going to kill the film and it kind of did. Even the final note they ended on was very predictable. The Substance’s ending was very shocking and ends you on this note that leaves you shocked. Together’s ending is exactly what I thought it would be with bad CGI. I don’t wanna spoil anything about the film’s ending, but the CGI isn’t good. Throughout the film there were some shocking imagery that was quite horrifying and disgusting but the ending I thought to be quite the opposite of that, it took the safe route when I wished it took the shocking route and ended you on a note that left you thinking like The Substance did.
Also, I think there’s some problems in the central relationship of the film. Like I said, the central relationship is played by Dave Franco and Allison Brie. They’re good in the film, since they’re a real life married couple they’re chemistry is very good. I think Franco’s character is way too much of a jerk that it makes no sense as to why Brie’s character would be with him. I get that the whole point of the movie with the themes is to explore this idea of broken relationships yet them wanting to be together. But Franco does multiple things in the film that made me go “why would anybody want to be with him?” Brie’s character is a very sweet and charming person, she’s the complete opposite of Franco. She deserves somebody so much better than Franco but they have to be together in order for the film to take place. Had they given Franco more redeeming qualities or made Brie equally as unlikable maybe it could’ve worked, but besides their chemistry nothing about their relationship really worked for me.
One final negative to discuss but the film I thought used humor in a very weird way that was off putting. My audience didn’t have a ton of people in the theater, but the other people in there were laughing throughout the film, I don’t think I laughed once. Perhaps with a larger audience the film’s humor could’ve worked better for me. Too many times, the humor undercut the tension of the moment. I believe the first still released for this film was of Brie and Franco on this chair. The scene that’s in the film is certainly one of the more memorable scenes in the film, but it’s undercut by humor. Brie is trying to give Franco alcohol to take away the pain then after the shocking thing happens it cuts to a joke that was so poorly placed that I didn’t feel the dread or the tension in the moment. I’ve heard some people describe the film as a horror comedy, if that was the intention of the filmmaker then they did a poor job of making it funny.
Final Thoughts: Overall, this didn’t work for me. There’s some positives related to the themes, gore, and performances. Franco and Brie are good in the film and I’d like to see them do more humor. The director, Matthew Shanks I think shows promise on the gore side of horror. But the film as a whole didn’t come together for me, it was a mess of a film that I didn’t get. I thought the ending ruined the film for me, I didn’t like the answers that were given. Like I said, there’s going to be people that love this film and deem it one of the best horror films of the year and the decade. I think there’s going to be a lot of people (like me) that were negative on the film. As more people see the film, I’m very curious as to what the film discussion surrounding the film is going to be.
The Score: 7.3/10 (C)
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