Body horror is in. "Together" is a squishy, fleshy, scream-inducing body horror film that premiered at Sundance under the festival's "Midnight" banner, which means it's basically allowed to be the opposite of most Sundance films. It's the rare festival horror film that could end up in big theaters, like "The Substance." It's not that it's that good; it's more of an over-the-top, acid-trip, roller-coaster of madness where if it looks weird, you'll go crazy.
Still, it's funny (in a slightly pretentious way), stars two very good actors (Dave Franco and Alison Brie, a real-life married couple) playing a couple with as many problems as real-life couples, and it works as a totally unhinged, but not absurd, thriller built around a Big Idea. When it ended, I thought: This is the kind of movie David Cronenberg would have made if he were less of a Canadian genius and more of a junk-food sensationalist.
Director: Michael Shanks
Writer: Michael Shanks
Stars: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herriman
Tim (Franco) and Millie (Brie) have been together for 10 years and still love each other, but they're having enough issues that their relationship has devolved into a familiar comfort/discomfort zone of "what are we doing here?" She's an elementary school teacher, and he's an indie rock musician living off hipster fumes. So the two make a change: they move from the city to a town in the countryside, where she's gotten a job as a teacher, and he'll experiment with his music and then leave for a while to tour with his friends' band.
At his going-away party, she gets down on one knee to propose to him—one of those public-declaration scenes that becomes even more awkward than usual, judging by his response. (He says yes, but in a tone that means "yes... I guess.") Which doesn't exactly align their new life. Nor does the fact that the place they're going to is next to a forest, and in the forest there's a cave in the ground, and inside the cave there are strange objects (a bell, church pews) along with a supernatural force, meaning that if you drink the cave water, some kind of spell will be cast on you.
As they settle into their new house, Michael Shanks, the film's Australian writer-director, pulls off a series of shocking foreshadowings where anything goes. He's pretty good at it. When Tim smells something strange coming from a ceiling light and then unscrews the base to see what's up there, what he finds is so unsettling it makes you laugh. There's also a glimpse of Dave's past: one of those super-creepy, grinning faces.
Then Tim and Millie go for a hike in the woods, and when a storm starts, he falls into the cave, and she follows him. They aren't trapped there (though they decide to spend the night waiting for the storm to pass); It's only three meters deep, with plenty of ridges to climb back up. But Tim, making the same mistake as two dogs in the film's prelude sequence, gets thirsty and drinks the water. When he and Millie wake up, their paws are stuck together, as if glued. They manage to separate, but this is the starting point for what's to come. Their two bodies literally want to merge.
It sounds like an eccentric thing for two bodies, even in a horror film. But it's telling that the image that dominates the second half of "Together"—that of hands sliding under skin—is a disturbing (if coincidental) echo of the climactic image in Luca Guadagnino's "Queer." It wasn't a body horror film, but it did present a sensual and captivating fantasy of romantic communion.
"Together," though an unapologetic horror film, is very much a love story. I'm not going to say Franco and Brie "used" their off-screen relationship to boost their performances, but Tim and Millie have a way of critiquing each other that feels natural. It's not just funny arguments. You feel their history and how they get on each other's nerves. And that connects to the film's theme: when two people are meant to be together, even their fights are part of it. They're not always lovey-dovey, but they're something deeper. They're united in spirit and perhaps, the film says, in flesh and blood.
In school, most of us learned Plato's definition of love: one separate body, and the two halves searching for each other. (If you find your soulmate, that's love.) Here, that theory is presented by Jamie, Millie's new colleague, played by Damon Herriman, with a friendly, sharp ambiguity that makes us wonder, "What's wrong with him?" Let's just say it has to do with a smiling, very creepy cult.
I make "Together" sound like a pretty elevated horror movie, but don't worry: there are plenty of scenes to make the audience laugh out loud, as they watch Tim and Millie have sex.
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