Review: TOGETHER

After a prologue that will remind you of John Carpenter's The Thing, we meet Tim and Millie who are about to move a little out of town to a lushly forrested country house. As partners, they are on a plateau where things have got a little too routine and their youthful hopes are dragging into inertia. At a sendoff, Millie proposes marriage in Millenial fashion and Tim bungles it with hesitation before an anticlimactic acceptance. Their night together features pillow talk that would render anyone in a long term relationship icy. Is it just a dream? Established in their new place, they whimsically go for a hike, find the location of the prologue, enjoy a bonding moment and wake up fused together at the calf muscles. That bit is not a dream.

Michael Shanks's debut feature of his own script (more on that later) wastes no time in establishing the dull pain of this part of a relationship and how the magical fusion the couple is suffering is directly punishing their drift. The central couple is played by real life couple Dave Franco and Allison Brie who immerse themselves into roles that, while they once might have been poignantly close to their real lives, might serve on ly as distant memories as recriminations about their progress as professionals and partners come up as part of daily conversation. The interesting thing about this depiction is that it swerves away from comedy when it might have gloried in it.

As such, it is more like an early '90s indie as directed by David Cronenberg with both flinty candour about coupledom and sex and body morphing ick. We are given a generous ramp of development before we get to the crucial moment when the central conceit is made flesh (so to type) and when the concept prevails and the expected twists and turns take place, the film falls into mechanical efficiency. Thanks to the stars, this works as they work hard to give us cause for empathy despite the writing presenting two entitled ocnsumer grade narcissists.

Also of note is the casting of Damon Herriman. Herriman has already played Charles Manson twice as well as a handful of other edgy nutjobs and he plays them for all they're worth. As fellow teacher Jamie at the school where Millie works, he's instantly offputting, mixing insinuation with a kind of Ikea-assembled charm. His quiet queasy menace sustains to the end.

This film arrives on screens under a cloud, being the subject of a lawsuit for plagiarism from an earlier Australian film called Better Half. I haven't seen that but I can tell you that the case is not just a plain stealing of an idea. I'll leave it to you to harvest the details but it does hamper the reception of this finely wrought film that unusually examines the creepier aspects of long term relationships so candidly. Does Better Half do the same or simliar? Well, I'd like to see it.

Until then, I'll be happy enough recommending this strange tale as an energetic and substantial essaying of the dangers of intimacy and the look of it when it's forced.

Viewing notes: Not only was I up for a free ticket due to my club membership at Kino, I had the whole screening to myself, a kind of reverse experience from the annoyance of Monday's cinema outing. Together is currently on general cinema release.