“Humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” Plato, The Symposium
Although the current horror film Together doesn’t pretend to parse Plato’s discourse on love, it relies heavily on the idea that true love is the comingling of minds and bodies that were once separated by Zeus out of envy. Tim (David Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) spend time in a country house seeking to regain the passion they once had.
After a stroll that ends up in a cave (how very Platonic!), they devolve into maddened humans, literally getting under each other’s skin. The visuals, even without excessive CGI, are body horror at its best, and allegorically land us in discussion about what love means and how it affects the struggling relationship the drama began with.
Thematically Together wishes to show how much the stressed couple loves each other, even willing to sacrifice their very flesh to reconcile their affections. No couple in the audience can ignore the commentary on the emotional demands of love, the millennial fear of commitment, and the strains that modern lonely life make on romance.
After all, Millie has sacrificed a higher teaching order to take a rural job while he is still at 35 years old trying to play in an indie-rock band. His intermittent impotency, while understandable given his lack of professional success, still seems like a major impediment to
taking their love to the next level.
While treating the aud to some icky body horror, writer-director Michael Shanks comments on the challenges of modern living that needs the therapy of communal sharing, of overcoming horrors together to emerge from that cave together toward the future.
Together
Director: Michael Shanks
Screenplay: Shanks
Cast: Dave Franco (The Disaster Artist), Alison Brie (Promising Young Woman)
Rating: R
Length:1hr 42m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com