Together review: Sydney Film Festival opener is freaky fun

Absence opens Together. The freaky fun debut feature from Australian director Michael Shanks kicked off the Sydney Film Festival with a flurry of shrieks, gasps and uproarious laughs under the glamorously chandeliered ceiling of the State Theatre.

Rain lashes thunderously through the canopy of a densely thicketed forest as a search party scours the undergrowth two-by-two in the darkening light, desperately seeking a missing couple whose ‘have you seen?’ poster slowly melts in the muddy churn.

Of course, we care less about this unseen pair than we immediately do for two handsome pups who have been pressed into service to help trace their steps. As they snuffle their way into a gaping underground cavern, we discern the shrapnel of a fallen chapel subsumed by the craggy walls.

The dogs appear unperturbed by this unnerving pace, lapping on the glistening ripples of a vast underground lake at the mouth of an even more unsettling abyss.

Watch the Together trailer.

When eventually reunited with their owner and popped into their generous run for the evening, their suddenly whelping unease leaves them staring, Sphinx-like, at one another in such a way that gives him the heebie-jeebies.

Congratulations if you survive a startling shot of just how close these pups will become, because it’s the scariest vision you’ll have to deal with in a darkly comic film that’s more concerned with the mundane tremors of navigating a fraying relationship than it is with the macabre mechanics of body horror.

Together: Dance with the Damon

Shot in and around Melbourne with a predominantly local cast and crew, Together Is fronted by US stars and real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim.

She’s a schoolteacher who has chosen to leave the anonymous American city where they share a high-rise apartment in favour of making a difference in a leafy village school. He’s a would-be musician stuck in a rut, retreating from physicality and haunted by images of his broken mother cradling his dead father in bed.

Deadloch actor Mia Morrisey makes a big impression in a small role as Millie’s protective bestie, Cath, who has no doubt Tim’s good guy at heart, but is frustrated on her behalf that Millie’s being suffocated in an ossifying relationship. A concern underlined by Millie’s excruciating attempt to propose that’s left dangling in the air to the grimacing awkwardness of everyone attending their leaving do.

When they do settle into their suspiciously gorgeous country retreat – just how big is Millie’s small school salary for two? – signs things are ‘not quite right’ abound.

Notably, the mutated clump of contorted rats that Tim sniffs rotting above the cornice of a pendant bulb, slowly cooking in a still-writhing mass. Then there’s the far too lovely charm of Damon Herriman’s nosy neighbour and soon-to-be teacher colleague Jamie, emitting big Stepford Wives vibes in this too-idyllic glade.

Tim’s on edge about just how easily Millie and Jamie fall into mateyness, exacerbating his confidence issues, but as the couple continues to paper over their cracks, they head off on a hike into the woods. Following an overgrown trail lined by old bells bearing odd symbols, they’re caught short when the weather turns. Tim locates the compass app on his soon-to-be-dead phone, only to realise he doesn’t know what to do with the due-north information.

Tumbling headlong into the cave, they’re forced to spend the night huddling by firelight, supping on that same devil’s cup that brought those two pups fat too close for comfort. By morning, ready to climb out, a strange goo fuses Tim and Millie’s things, with him writing it off as mildew. Tim’s not great at reading signs.

Together: for whom the bells toll

To say too much more about where things go would be to wander into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the distanced Tim and Millie are about to grow a whole lot closer, whether they like it or not.

Shanks carves a wonderfully odd body horror as writer and director, and he had a hand in the many special effects that mark the couple’s sick-making transformation. He followed a similar route into cinema as the RackaRacka boys Danny and Michael Philippou of Talk to Me and Bring Her Back infamy, cutting his teeth on zany YouTube stuff before branching out into shorts.

Together comes over a decade into Shanks’ career, with him acknowledging on opening night that he didn’t think it was going to happen. His wittily drawn screenplay landed in Dave Franco’s inbox, and The Studio actor took it straight to Brie. While there is a stoush over similarities with a previous feature, I haven’t seen Patrick Henry Phelan’s Better Half and will assess Together on its own merits.

The absurdity of amplifying the physical closeness of a distant couple makes for magnificently engaging cinema, with great fun to be had from Brie and Franco navigating the pitfalls.

Acute Misfortune cinematographer Germain McMicking stages a spectacular aerial shot as an increasingly zoned-out Tim whirls around the jade-tiled confines of their shower, its head artfully blocking his wotsit as Millie drives away, and he appears magnetically compelled to reunite with her.

Another excruciating sequence sees them caught in a rare moment of in flagrante frolic, alarmingly in a toilet cubicle in her new school, after which they, err, can’t consciously uncouple. Later, at home, there’s an almost balletic quality to them tumbling towards one another across a darkened hallway when they wind up in separate bedrooms.

Jumpily edited by Carnifex director Sean Lahiff, another enjoyable film accused of being overly familiar, Together increasingly edges into The Substance territory – expect lashings of retch-inducing skin modulation blurring the boundaries between practical and visual effects, replete with a Chekhov’s electric saw.

But the comic relief kicks in just as things get really twisted, unscrewing a pressure valve that brings us back, via a perfectly timed Spice Girls needle drop that breaks the ominous spell of Bring Her Back composer Cornel Wilczek’s worrying score, to the heart of the matter.

Shanks is wise to sit back and let his stars do their thing. Brie and Franco are delightful sparring partners, their obvious care for one another leaving us aching for Tim and Millie to get their shit together.

Together was shown as part of the 2025 Sydney Film Festival and goes on general release on 31 July 2025.