★★★½ (3½ out of 4)
It’s been just a week since relationships took a beating on film in the bitterly satirical “Oh, Hi!” but get ready for the coup de grace in “Together,” now in theaters, and best described as a hilarious take on the horrors of codependency. It’s the anti-Valentine date movie of the summer.
Real-life marrieds and actor-producers Dave Franco and Alison Brie give tough/tender performances that cut to the core of togetherness as Tim, a musician still aspiring at 35, and Millie, a schoolteacher who dotes on him, try not to die from nonstop closeness. The writing and directing of Michael Shanks mark him as a talent to watch.
“Together” starts traditionally enough with this city couple saying goodbye to their urbanite friends. Millie has taken a new job teaching in the remote countryside, a chance she thinks will help Tim and her resume the sexual intimacy that once defined their relationship. She actually proposes to Tim at their farewell party and his hesitation ends in her public humiliation.
Alone time in the country begins to rankle until one day, while hiking, Tim and Millie tumble into a cave during a driving rainstorm and decide to shelter for the night. They even drink water from a stagnant pool—who does that!—and wake up to find their legs mysteriously stuck together with an unknown sticky material. I got eerie vibes of Demi Moore’s “The Substance” from the scene, enhanced later when they have sex in a boys' bathroom stall at Millie’s school and find their genitals conjoined. There’s a real ouch factor built into the separation this time.
Instead of bolting back to the city (my first reaction), Millie seeks counsel from her friendly coworker and closest neighbor Jamie (Damon Herriman). When they tell Jamie of their experience in the cave, he reveals that the cave used be the site of a church, which has attracted a cult I refuse to spoil here. Though I will say that another local couple did go missing after visiting that same cave.
['Together' is] the anti-Valentine date movie of the summer.
Despite sometimes losing its balance on the seesaw between silly and scary, “Together” is built to freak you out big time and does it ever succeed. Tim visits a doctor (logic, how much we missed you) who strangely diagnoses a panic attack instead of a near breakdown. When Tim asks Millie to drive him to the train so he can audition for a music gig in the city that could end his stalled career, he doesn’t go, finding himself drawn back to a woman he’s not even sure he likes, much less loves. Co-dependency is a bitch.
Of course, “Together” reaches deeper than glib answers through beyond-the-call-of-duty performances from Franco and Brie who use the film’s surreal madness to investigate the very real emotional costs that come from the reality of living together. The film holds up a dark mirror to the greeting card sentiment of two becoming one through commitment.
Near the end, as Tim and Millie await a visit from her parents, played by Tom Considine and Melanie Beddie, Jamie tries to persuade Tim and Millie that that body fusion is the purest form of love. Whether you’ll agree or run screaming into the night at the sight of them slow dancing to “2 Become 1” by the Spice Girls is what gives “Together” the power to haunt your dreams.