BY DESIGN, BODY horror is a genre that’s hard to stomach. It trades jump scares for lengthy exposure to imagery that gets stuck in both your mind and gut. These depictions of the degeneration or mutilation of the body offer embodied critiques of societal problems, like unrealistic beauty standards (The Substance) or online surveillance (Possessor), or, as is the case in Michael Shanks’ forthcoming film, Together, dysfunctional romance.
One moment in particular sticks out. In a scene from the first half of the film, we watch Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) kiss tenderly. But as the kiss ends, the couple finds that their lips have fused together. While Together features many gruesome scenes of Millie and Tim testing the adage of “till death do us part,” Shanks’ film has more on its mind than just grossing you out; it explores the dual discomforts of romantic complacency and romantic codependency.
Tim and Millie move to the remote countryside for Millie’s job at a small school. Tim, a musician, has felt creatively stuck and emotionally hollow. And while Millie is hopeful that the move might be a fresh start for their relationship, the transition is looking more like a continuation of moorage. Franco and Brie — who are married in real life — distinctively capture the complacency that can come in a long-term relationship.
Then, on a hike, the two slake their thirst with water in a cavern. Soon they find that they can’t spend time too far away from each other without feeling nauseous. They realize there’s a force within them that wants to merge their two bodies into a monstrous whole.
What follows is a clever commentary on codependency. Millie and Tim try to retain their autonomy and avoid becoming one being. This newfound “condition” is an absurd over-correction to the ways they were living their lives before: technically a couple, yet both trying to live fully independent lives, free from each other.
Offhandedly, on the eve before their move, Millie tells Tim, “If we don’t split now, it will only get harder later.” That adage will come back to haunt them as it becomes harder to stop their bodies from literally merging. Later, Millie repeats the adage, this time with a saw in hand.
I’m not sure if Shanks had the words of Genesis 2 in mind — the two will “become one flesh” — when making Together, but his film feels like a creatively horrific riff on that idea. If relationships are so susceptible to becoming codependent or stale, should we avoid them altogether? Together reaffirms that committing to another person is scary but ultimately worth striving for.
Zachary Lee is a former online editorial assistant at Sojourners and part of the inaugural Sojourners Journalism Cohort. You can find him on Letterboxd @zlee729.
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