Up front, though: Because I mentioned spoilers in the subject of this post, I should tell you that I won't be properly spoiling Together until the fourth of these four segments. Things get progressively more spoiler-y through the segments, so if you haven't seen the movie and you sense yourself starting to get exposed to things you don't want to be exposed to, you can bow out then.
My first Australian #1
Usually when I get the email that contains the nominees for this year's Australian Film Critics Association awards, which mostly focus on films with a strong Australian connection (they do have one "international" category so they can include something like One Battle After Another), it's a bunch of fringe nominees indeed. Yes an Elvis sometimes sneaks its way in there, but this list is usually comprised of films made by, but also only seen by, Australians. I've heard of these movies because I live in Australia, but most outside Australia won't know them from a hole in the ground.
That email has not yet come out this year, but it when it does, I suspect it will include my #1 movie of the year.
You wouldn't know Michael Shanks' Together was Australian on the surface of it. The stars, Alison Brie and Dave Franco, are both American, and though the film never specifies its location, everyone else in the movie speaks with an American accent. The only real settings are an urban area (for a very short time at the beginning) and a rural area (for the rest of the movie).
But the keen observer will note Australian actor Damon Herriman as essentially the only other prominent actor in the cast. While him being Australian does not, of course, limit him to appearing in Australian movies -- Herriman was also Charles Manson in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- it does make you wonder if, indeed, it might have been shot in his home country.
Well Shanks is also Australian, and I would assume most of the crew are as well, because it doesn't make sense to import Americans to do jobs Australians can do perfectly well. So it's also shot here, and I discovered recently that one of the producers is a neighbor of mine in the town where I live, and also friends on Facebook with some of my friends. (Hi Mike Cowap, if you're reading this. I don't know you but I hope to meet you sometime soon.)
Needless to say, I've never had an Australian #1 before. While this movie is not "Australian" in the sense of being set in Australia within its own world, it's a full-on Australian production, and that definintely counts.
Because I've got a lot of other things to write about here, I won't go through and figure out how high an Australian movie has gotten previously in my rankings, but another one that was produced here but set in America -- the aforementioned Elvis -- did make my top ten a few years ago. In terms of movies actually set in Australia, Sweet Country was a top 20 movie for me in 2017.
Does this mean I'm finally embracing the country that has been my home for going on 13 years now? That wouldn't really be an accurate conclusion. I mean, the fact that this movie hails from Australia is very much extra-textual to the movie. But I do appreciate the symbolic value of it, and hopefully my next Australian #1 will even take place here.
Dave Franco equals his big brother
James Franco has fallen on hard times, to put it mildly, but he'll always have a place in my personal cinematic history in that he was the star of one of my past #1 movies, 2010's 127 Hours. That means I've got his name in a spreadsheet where I track people to see if they might eventually appear in more than one.
Fifteen years later, Dave Franco has now achieved the same thing. Barring a big comeback from James that might only result from a very sincere apology tour, Dave seems like the only one who will have the chance to ever appear in another.
I don't specifically have a lot to say about this, but I did think it was worth making a quick mention in a post where I am touting Together's feats.
Body dysmorphia goes back-to-back
I don't know if you remember when I wrote this post last year after naming The Substance my #1 of 2024, but the premise of that post was that a horror movie had gone back-to-back with my #1 of 2023, Skinamarink, which was quite a surprise since I had never previously named a horror movie as my #1. I then went on to try to explore if The Substance was "really" a horror movie or if it was just body horror. Yes I considered that distinction pretty carefully.
Well now, in the space of just a little more than two years, if you count January of 2024 and January of 2026 as bracketing that period, horror has gone from a #1 underdog to a #1 favorite. This is the third straight year you could describe my #1 as horror. I mean, Together is more definitely a horror than The Substance.
But even more so, it is a body horror, and even more so, it is a body horror in which body dysmorphia is a prominent theme.
Some of the discussions of the body dysmorphia get into my next section where the real spoilers start, so let me get into the other similarities I noticed with The Substance that suggest I am definitely predisposed to this sort of movie:
1) Both movies have essentially three actors, with all other parts barely even being speaking roles.
2) In both movies, there is a central dynamic between two characters, and a third supporting character who acts on them as a catalyst.
3) In both movies, those two characters are concerned about things that are happening physically to their bodies.
4) Both movies feature some sort of physical monstrosity, but that's all I'll say about that at the moment.
Let's stop dancing around it and go on to the next and final section ...
The final shot of Together that blew my mind
SPOILER ALERT.
So when anyone asks me why this seemingly ordinary horror movie became my #1 of the year, and they don't care about having it spoiled, the experience I'm about to recount with the movie is what I'll point them to. Hello, you, if you are reading now and this describes you.
So just to clearly establish where we are in the story ...
Millie (Brie) and Tim (Franco), who have been dating for years and living in the city, move to the country so she can take up a teaching job. His attempts to succeed as a musician have basically failed, and he's belatedly accepted her proposal, made in front of all their friends, to live together? get married? it's not entirely clear. What's clear is he did initially botch the acceptance of the proposal, leading to considerable awkwardness in the moment. Obviously there's something about taking his relationship with Millie any further that is scaring him.
After moving to the country, Tim and Millie are on a hike and they fall into a hole in the ground where they come into contact with a mysterious force that causes their bodies to start to fuse together. We already know this force is pretty dangerous as we see what happened to two dogs who drank the same water that Tim and Millie drank. We also know there are some other hikers who were reported missing in this area. We'll meet them later.
Tim has shown commitment jitters the whole time, and won't have sex with Millie, which makes her somewhat more receptive to the friendliness/flitrations of a senior teacher at the school, Jamie (Herriman), who we later learn is gay so Tim actually didn't have anything to worry about. But Tim gets jealous anyway.
The worse problem, though, is the steady attempts of their biology to fuse together, which once happens while they're having sex, and other times when they're sleeping. It gets so bad that their bodies are literally pulled together as if by unseen forces. The force is so powerful that it sends them into a bit of a trance, leading to a memorable scene of Tim in the shower and Millie against a frosted glass door.
Eventually it seems like one of them will have to sacrifice themselves to save the other. They both try to do it, which is a touching indication of how much they actually do love each other. But then, to prevent Millie from dying of what should be a fatal knife wound, Tim decides to just let their bodies merge. This is accompanied by the great needle drop of "2 Become 1" by the Spice Girls, which we earlier learned was Millie's favorite band. Yes, this movie has a sense of humor, and we start to see the bodies fuse beyond the point of no return. We already saw this happen earlier with the hikers, so we know it doesn't end well.
What seems like it will just be a button is Millie's parents later arriving at the house for a Sunday lunch, one she's mentioned twice previously in the narrative. I think we're meant to assume it's the first time they've been to the couple's new country home. After they've rung the bell, we're bracing ourselves for what deformed freak is going to answer the door. After all, we saw both the dogs and the hikers that previously fused together into an unspeakable monstrosity.
The person who answers the door is:
A non-binary person, who says to their parents, casually, "Hey."
Roll credits.
This is not Alison Brie. This is not Dave Franco. This is a different actor, and a different person entirely.
Suddenly I realized that this movie was operating as an allegory for coming out as a trans person.
And then I started to backtrack.
If I rewound 30 seconds -- in my mind only, since I saw this in the theater -- I realized that when Millie's parents got out of the car, they looked a little nervous but cautiously optimistic. It was not a look they'd have on their faces just from visiting their daughter's new home for the first time. It might be a look they'd have if they had been quarreling with her and this was an olive branch by both parties, but that's not something that was mentoned in the narrative.
No, this is a look the parents would have if they were meeting their daughter for the first time after the daughter had come out either as non-binary or as a trans man.
And this is what probably got me about that: One of my big emotional triggers is when a parent accepts their gay, trans or non-binary child. I can't explain exactly why this is an emotional trigger for me, because I don't have anyone in my family who can be described that way. But maybe it's just that as a parent, I hope I would do the same thing in their position, even if I were scared and even if I didn't fully understand. I would hope I would just love them unconditionally.
And it's unconditional love we see on the faces of Millie's parents, mixed in with their nervousness and cautious optimism.
So then I rewound a little further and remembered a line of dialogue earlier that told us what we were supposed to think about this visit by Millie's parents. It's the second time she mentioned it. In an argument with Tim, she said, "My parents are coming for lunch this weekend, and I don't think you should be here for that."
In other words, this alternate version of her should not be there. She was doubting she was ready to come out to them yet.
We know she did eventually change her mind, and maybe "she" became a "they" when "two became one." Otherwise, Millie's parents would not have that look of nervousness and cautious optimism on their faces as they approached the house, ready to meet their daughter as a trans man or a non-binary person for the first time.
On my second viewing, I couldn't map out everything perfectly. There's a subplot about Tim's recently deceased parents that seems like a red herring in terms of this interpretation of the movie. Unless ... unless you see this as a projection of the fact that Millie's parents might be "dead to her," in a sense, if they do not accept her new publicly presented identity.
But I think that's because Together doesn't want this to be the only interpretation of the movie. On Filmspotting when talking about Weapons, Josh Larsen recently said that a school shooting metaphor was an "available" interpretation of the movie. I think Shanks and company also wanted the trans allegory to be an "available" interpretation of their movie, not the only one -- but with plenty of Easter eggs for those wanting to follow that interpretation to its logical ends. Such as:
1) There's a scene earlier in the film when a slightly possessed Tim, who is basically becoming sickened by his compulsion to be near Millie, arrives at her school to finally have sex with her. They run into a nearby available bathroom to do this, but of course, this is a school bathroom used by students, and we see a pair of young feet appear outside the cubicle, wondering what's going on inside there. When Millie emerges by herself, leaving Tim to remain hiding, we realize that this is a boys bathroom, and the senior teacher, Jamie, says to her, trying to put her transgression in context, "Miss Wilson, this is a bathroom for little boys." On the surface, yes, this is a problem because it suggests an inappropriate relationship between an adult and a child. But if you are already looking at this as a trans allegory, it's a moment of shame for Millie because she is trying to use a different bathroom from her biological gender assignment.
2) Then there's Jamie. Is it a coincidence that Jamie has a name that could belong equally well to a man or a woman? I think it isn't. Part of the character's function in the story can be interpreted as trying to draw Millie out and show her it's okay to come out as trans. We are very much meant to believe this is a journey Jamie already went through, which is hidden within a plot about the cult that used to operate out of the cave where Tim and Millie drank that poisonous water.
3) In this allegory, Millie is the "real" character and Tim is an embodiment of the potential future version of herself. She's trying to get Tim to "commit" to being the forward-facing personality, and Tim's refusal to do so is the thing that saddens her so much. But it's really Millie who can't commit, and Tim is just the symbol of her struggle. Although Tim is not portrayed effeminately in any clear way -- remember, this is a Trojan horse interpretation built into this otherwise mainstream movie -- some of his costume choices and hairstyle choices read as androgynous, if you are looking for this.
4) When both Tim and Millie try to save each other at the end, it could be interpreted as the character's flirtation with suicide. We know that a person with this sort of body dysmorphia, who does not believe they can come out as another gender becaue of how their loved ones will react, often considers suicide. So the decision to finally come out is akin to the choice not to go through with the suicide. So in a way, the new half of the personality has saved the original one from extinction. The character's journey is to realize that selecting to present yourself as a different gender, or no gender at all, does not mean that the world will view you as an unspeakable monstrosity.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
If you've seen the movie, and you either didn't see this, or saw it but didn't think it worked, or saw it and thought it worked within the context of the movie but you don't care about this as a mission for a movie, that's fine. You do you. I'll just say that for me, this was a revelatory way of sneaking in a hidden intepretation of a movie that doesn't demand to be dealt with, but is "available" if you want it.
It doesn't even matter that the hidden interpretation was about a trans person considering coming out. I know that could make it divisive to some viewers. What matters, to me, is that it's got a hidden interpretation at all. The fact that this hidden interpretation also has a socially forward function that I embrace, and that this can therefore be seen as an extremely happy ending, just makes it all the better in terms of my appreciation.
And you know what? Maybe it isn't even the only hidden interpretation in Together. It's just the only one I happened to excavate.
Movies that operate on multiple levels, with multiple available interpretations to different viewers, are always the best uses of the unique tool that is cinema.
The fact that I didn't even realize it was doing it until the very final shot?
Well for me, that's something worth celebrating by making it my #1 of the year.
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