Together

Every couple goes through certain rites of passage. You date, maybe you move in together, maybe you get married. And maybe a visit to a mysterious cave makes your bodies start to fuse together. That's what happens in the new horror film Together, starring real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Linda Holmes?

  Every couple goes through certain rites of passage. You date, maybe you move in together, maybe you get married, and maybe a visit to a mysterious cave makes your bodies start to fuse together. That's what happens in the new horror film Together, starring real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco. I'm Aisha Harris. And I'm Linda Holmes. And today, we're talking about Together on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:05Linda Holmes?

  Joining us today to be together with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Hey Roxana.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  Hey guys. Thank you for having me.

• 2:13Linda Holmes?

  Absolutely. And we're not, none of us are going to be together like this movie means it. So Together, written and directed by Michael Shanks, is about Millie and Tim, played by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. They are long-term partners who move to a house in the country, very nice house, by the way.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:31Linda Holmes?

  On a hike, they stumble, literally, on an underground cave. And by the time they get out, a very unsettling process has already begun. It seems they are being physically pulled together, their bodies starting to stick to each other. And that is just the beginning. The story is not for the squeamish. Together is in theaters now. Ayesha, I'm going to start with you. Talk to me about Together.

• 2:56Aisha Harris?

  It was fun. I kind of enjoyed it. As someone who herself has been in a long-term relationship, I think some of the ideas that this movie is positing around what it means to be in a relationship and how, you know, you go from being I, I, I to we, we, we very quickly. And that can be very scary. And you look around, you're like, what's happening? I think that seeing Dave Franco and Alison Brie sort of play this out, knowing that they are a real-life couple and seeing them sort of play this version of a relationship out is very interesting. It's fun. And I think they have really good chemistry. And a lot of cringey moments happen in the first few minutes of this movie that like I would never wish upon anyone, public moments of proposals.

• 3:40Aisha Harris?

  And I feel like it gets that dynamic right. And once it gets into the body horror aspect, I think it's a very visceral movie and I liked that. But yeah, overall, I had a lot of fun with this movie. And I'm sure we'll get into sort of where I think it kind of didn't exactly stick the landing. But I had fun and I think a lot of people probably will too.

• 4:00Linda Holmes?

  Yeah. What'd you think, Roxana?

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I think I'm slightly less positive overall, but I'm very pro the relationship stuff. Like when this is like marriage story, I was very into it.

• 4:12Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  And then I think it gets a lot of the like. Microaggressions of long-term relationships, right? Like, the little resentments that can build up over time with your partner and like, the sacrifices you perceive you have made for them, the sacrifices maybe they didn't make for you. Like, all of that mess, I think, is very sharply observed and acted very well between the two of them. I think the body horror is gross, in a good way. That's like a pro for me.

• 4:41Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  But I don't know that the horror idea feels like as well-developed as it could have been. And we're not going to get into spoilers necessarily, but I do think it's a movie that sort of just ends, rather than having like a real resolution of like its central horror conceit.

• 5:00Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  So like, I'm fairly mixed, I think.

• 5:02Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, I'm a little bit mixed too, for I think some of the same reasons. I really like how they sort of assert this metaphor, which is so blunt that it is barely a metaphor. But, you know, this idea that the fusing of their bodies is, you know, a stand-in for the fact that in a relationship, you know, you're sort of always concerned about merging your identity with someone else's and all of that. I'm not sure that they kind of have anything to say about this other than that this dynamic exists and people are nervous about it. I kept waiting for the moment that sometimes happens in my favorite scary movies

• 5:43Linda Holmes?

  or horror movies, where you kind of go like, oh, I see where they're going with this, right? There was nothing in it that really kind of, you know, felt surprising to me or anything like that. But I do agree with Ayesha. I think a lot of the effects are really good. Certainly, the body horror is gross.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:02Linda Holmes?

  Particularly with her, the effects of how they indicate that her body is being pulled against her will, I think are very interesting at times and very kind of balletic and cool-looking. Had a lot of respect for that. And I do think, like, a lot of times in a movie, like, the people, either both of them or one of them, is so great that it doesn't really seem plausible that they have serious doubts about the relationship. But both of these people, I kind of understand how they would get on your nerves and I kind of understand how you might decide not to end up with them.

• 6:36Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Linda Holmes?

  Both of them.

• 6:37Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Linda Holmes?

  And both of them relatively equally in some ways, just in different, like it plays out differently, but kind of to the same degree, they're not that good at being in this relationship a lot of the time.

• 6:52Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Linda Holmes?

  So I liked that. It's always difficult when you get a relationship where it's like, oh, we're all really nervous about how things are going to go, but it's like very clear that either you have one great person and one jerk, or you have a couple of perfect people who are destined to figure it out.

• 7:06Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. I mean, Dave Franco kind of, his career has been very interesting to watch, especially just because, you know, he started off as the younger brother of James Franco and the sort of afterthoughts. And he was usually playing a dirtbag, like he's got that voice, it needles you. I think for some people, they will find that incredibly irritating. For me, it usually works.

• 7:31Linda Holmes?

  It's not a typical leading man voice, and I like that.

• 7:34Aisha Harris?

  Right. And he doesn't usually play a leading man. He's usually a side character or he pops up, like he popped up in the studio playing a version of himself.

• 7:42Linda Holmes?

  He's very funny in the studio.

• 7:44Aisha Harris?

  Yes. And he's truly in Love Lies Bleeding, the very fantastic, another great body horror movie. Well, a much better body horror movie, I think. But like, he in that movie is playing an absolute terrible person. There is no gray area. He is horrible. And I think it's interesting to see him here, still playing a version of that character, but he's not a villain. And I think that this is kind of one of the best roles I've seen him in, and the most sort of meteor roles, no pun intended. But like, it does feel very like lived in, in a way. And I do wonder how much of that has to do with both of them actually being in a relationship together. And it's like watching, you know, I don't know, Angelina Jolie in Brad Pitt. Like, you can't help.

• 8:25Aisha Harris?

  Putting that sort of aspect on to it, and I wonder how much of that also affects the way we watch the movie. At least for me, it's like impossible to forget that they are, you know, in real life, real couple. And they've said in interviews, like, they actually couldn't imagine doing this with someone who wasn't because it is such an intimate movie.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:42Aisha Harris?

  You have to be, all body parts are at some point being fused together. And by all, I mean, all.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. Probably the most effective use of fusing together is the scene that we're sort of alluding to a little bit. But yeah.

• 8:57Linda Holmes?

  I mean, sex, it's sex. Like, you can imagine how for a, for a couple.

• 9:01Aisha Harris?

  We're NPR, but we can still, it's a thing.

• 9:03Linda Holmes?

  Yeah. Still acknowledge that this couple at one point is having sex, and which is a problem. If you're gonna stick together and not be able to pull apart again, it's gonna come up in that context a little bit.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Yes. But yeah, I do think that he, hers is not a bad performance. She's great. But I think he gets the more interesting character.

• 9:22Linda Holmes?

  I, I think that's true.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, we get some of his backstory. I mean, the backstory is very like Ari Aster influenced. Like, I think in an interview, Dave Franco talks about hereditary, and it's like, oh, yeah, I get, I get it. You love hereditary. I understand. But his is sort of the like more classic, like, horror story backstory, which I think was used really well. Like all horror movies these days, you're doing a trauma thing, but the entire movie isn't about trauma, which I thought at least was like a nice little break from the rest of the genre at this point.

• 9:56Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Linda Holmes?

  And I think the movie is not trying to draw too straight of a line between every single thing he does in this movie and that trauma. I think that trauma clearly informs the way he approaches the relationship. It affects how he approaches the idea of love and the idea of giving yourself over to another person. But they're not the bulletin board with the red yarn kind of pointing from this event to this event to this event, showing you exactly how they work together. And I mentioned how really funny I think he is in the studio. It was interesting to me. I expected this to lean into the comedy of it a little bit more than it did. There's sort of, to me, kind of one sequence that's... Kind of at the beginning of when they're sort of both coming to terms with what's happening,

• 10:40Linda Holmes?

  where they suddenly seemed to me to lean more into the black comedy of it with some just straight up comedy beats in the way that the scenes are written. And I really welcomed to that. I thought that was cool. I was like, oh, I see. So we're going into more of a comedic thing in this third act. But then it kind of felt like they pulled back from that and there wasn't much more of that. It's really only a couple of minutes in this scene with the two of them where they seem to be playing it as comedy. And it's not that there's nothing else that's darkly funny in the entire movie, but I kind of was there for this kind of, it felt like a tonal shift to me. And then it felt like they undid it. And I was a little bit bummed because I also would have watched a version of this that played more into that more directly.

• 11:24Aisha Harris?

  I saw this at its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, and that scene got a huge audience reaction. And that to me was the highlight of the film. It struck the right balance between body horror and comedy and many comedies and involve drugs. And it involves drugs in a way that I think elevates that, the typical way that we see these things employed. But I agree with you that once it pulls back from that, and then even though, you know, we're saying like, the direct line is not like trauma, trauma, trauma, there is a way more sort of like pat way that this film reveals why this is happening, where I was just like, uh, like I, again, this is not every, but a lot of horror movies of

• 12:05Aisha Harris?

  the last few years, including Ari Aster movies, feel like they are playing with the same, like, this is the explanation, like, this is what it is. And I'm like, this is boring.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  And I think the problem with over explaining, which I think we all agree that the third act tends to do, is then it makes me think about all the other stuff you haven't explained. So it's really just like, it's a problem with the script where I'm like, oh, so I get it. But now you've opened up this world that you've told me has a certain justification, but you're not justifying everything.

• 12:33Linda Holmes?

  And a set of rules. And then you go back and say, well, I don't feel like it did follow those rules all the time.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:40Linda Holmes?

  The thing that is sort of a bummer to me is that they start this film with a little prologue sequence in which you watch two dogs go into a cave, drink some water in the cave, come out, and then fuse together into one like dog monster. To me, there's no reason for that. Just let me watch them go into the cave. I basically know the conceit of the movie. And what it reminds me of is all the TV shows that like start with a dead body and then they're like six weeks earlier.

• 13:11Aisha Harris?

  It's very Law and Order.

• 13:12Linda Holmes?

  I think you could have just had them start to stick together and not explain why it's happening. I think that would in some ways be more interesting because it's how I think it feels to people sometimes in relationships like this is that it just one day you feel it happening and it's very unnerving. I don't know why you couldn't just do it that way.

• 13:34Aisha Harris?

  Well, this feels like classic first time director problems, right? Like Michael Shanks, this is his first feature film. So I give him a little bit of leeway of there was enough in this movie for me that shows promise that like

• 13:46Linda Holmes?

  Oh, for sure.

• 13:47Aisha Harris?

  If he's gonna, you know, over explain sometimes and I was less bothered by the prologue than I was just by the way it ends. But it's a absolutely valid criticism. And at the same time, just like, oh, this is kind of what usually happens with first time films.

• 14:01Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Aisha Harris?

  I will say one other point that I loved, but I can also see other people kind of bristling at or being like, oh, really? This is so obvious is like at the end, there is a musical cue that is both very on point and obvious, but it worked on me. And, you know, your mileage may vary. That's all I'll say, but.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Excellent musical cue.

• 14:20Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 14:20Aisha Harris?

  Because if I said the artist, anyone who knows the artist would obviously know what the cue is. And I think it's better as a surprise, but it tickled me. It pleased me.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think that cue works. I also think that as much as I have issues with the prologue scene, I ultimately take it as like a, we wanted to do an homage to the thing. And I guess I can't be too mad about anybody wanting to do an homage to the thing. And I will say, great dog performances. Those dogs really stared at each other in a very unsettling way.

• 14:53Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, if those are real dogs, they did a great job.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  They did great work.

• 14:56Linda Holmes?

  And I think you're right, Ayesha, that it often takes confidence as a director, not just confidence in yourself, but the confidence of the people you're making the movie for and with, not to explain, right?

• 15:08Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Linda Holmes?

  Like, to be able to say, no, they're gonna get it. It's my decision and belief that they're gonna get it. You have to kind of maybe get a little bit farther into your career before that's gonna work as well. But like, I feel like I'm coming off like I didn't like this movie, and I did. I will say, I wore a baseball cap to this movie, and I pulled it down over my eyes.

• 15:27Aisha Harris?

  I was looking away a lot during this movie.

• 15:29Linda Holmes?

  At certain moments, I was like, oh, no, not gonna look. It does have jump scares. It does have some really scary stuff in it and some gross stuff in it. I recommend, like, just bring a baseball cap, and you can kind of pull it down low, and then you can kind of see the bottom of the screen. And like, if you're overwhelmed, you can just stay under there, and then you can just kind of peek out a little bit. I think the people down the row from me thought I was a very strange person, but sometimes that's what I need with horror movies. It's not that there's no blood in it, but like, it's not because it's bloody.

• 16:02Aisha Harris?

  It's just gross.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  It's just gross. It's just, the way that I talk about body horror sometimes is I'm like, what is the goop factor? And the goop factor is very high on this film.

• 16:13Linda Holmes?

  And the squelching factor?

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, the sound design is really good.

• 16:17Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, like, there's so many of these nowadays where the CGI effects are not working, and it's just, this doesn't feel real. And I don't know how much of this is CGI versus practical effects, but you will feel this movie. And even though it was a lot, I welcome anything that feels real, even if it's very gross.

• 16:35Linda Holmes?

  It is gross. Okay. Tell us what you think about Together. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/pchh, and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Roxana Hadadi, Aisha Harris, thank you so much for being here. Talking to you is never gross.

• 16:56Aisha Harris?

  Thank you, Linda.

• 16:57Linda Holmes?

  Thank you. This episode is produced by Carly Rubin, Janey Morris, Liz Metzger, and Mike Katsoff, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.