Movie review: 'Together' drags despite Brie, Franco commitment

UPI

a day ago

1 of 5 | Alison Brie and Dave Franco, seen at the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, star in "Together." File Photo by Chris Chew/UPI | License Photo
July 25 (UPI) -- Together, in theaters Friday, has a clever premise but dawdles its way to the good parts. Alison Brie and Dave Franco rise to the occasion by selling the horror, but the film takes too long getting to its macabre extremes.
Brie and Franco, who married in 2017, play Millie and Tim, a couple who move to the suburbs for her new teaching job. On a hike, they fall into a cave and drink some water that causes them to merge together.
When they first wake up with their legs fused together, it's only slightly painful to pull apart. The pull toward each other grows more and uncomfortable, however, and difficult to separate.
While a combination of prosthetic makeup and visual effects achieves the melding of flesh, it's the actors' performances that convince the audience Millie and Tim are in pain.
Brie and Franco's bodies contort as their ailment pulls them together. The more entangled their connections, the more they must punish themselves to pull themselves apart.
When the performances reach that level, they feel like Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2, willing to chop off his possessed hand with a chainsaw. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between.
Though it is necessary to explore some of Tim and Millie's relationship issues that the crisis exacerbates, that portion of the film could be more efficient. The couple's issues are rather basic.
Tim is still trying to make his music career happen and is commitment-phobic about moving away with Millie. That's about as generic as relationship movies get.
Millie fares a bit better, with Brie avoiding the trope of a domineering partner making ultimatums. But then, she seems either oblivious to Tim's very obvious discomfort or delusional in ignoring the red flags.
The photography also goes overboard in depicting the magnetic pull Tim and Millie struggle to resist. Writer/director Michael Shanks loves to turn the camera upside down and after several of those shots, it's enough already.
That Franco and Brie are married seems to contribute to their comfort in depicting the physical scenarios together. Non-married actors could certainly act, but it feels like a couple having fun folding themselves around each other.
The moments of extreme horror are sure to elicit visceral reactions from viewers. Alas those moments are surrounded by a very banal relationship drama.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.