Together (2025)
Directed by Michael Shanks
No — Together is not woke, scoring 19 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Together arrives as a body horror romance from first-time director Michael Shanks, a film in which Dave Franco and Alison Brie, married in life, play a couple whose devotion manifests as literal tissue fusion.
Consciousness Markers
Jamie is revealed to be one of two married men fused together through the church, a genuine same-sex couple central to the plot's thesis. The Chinese release's alteration of this couple into a heterosexual one drew explicit criticism invoking the LGBTQ+ community.
Millie is the narrative anchor and the one who proposes marriage, but the film treats this as relationship drama rather than a feminist statement. No overt gender-ideology agenda.
The cast is predominantly white (Franco, Brie, Herriman), with only incidental supporting diversity such as Aljin Abella and Sunny S. Walia. No deliberate representation-forward casting.
Jamie briefly expounds on the Symposium's theory of eros, but it is woven into character dialogue rather than delivered as a sermon. Minimal didacticism.
No engagement with race as a theme; the story is a white-couple body horror with no racial commentary.
No environmental or climate themes whatsoever.
No economic critique or eat-the-rich messaging; the horror is interpersonal and supernatural.
Despite being body horror about fused flesh, the film's treatment of bodies is grotesque and horrific, the opposite of body-positivity messaging.
No neurodivergence themes; Tim's episodes are supernatural, not framed as neurodivergent identity.
No historical revisionism; the film is a contemporary supernatural story loosely drawing on Greek myth.
Why it received this score
Together arrives as a body horror romance from first-time director Michael Shanks, a film in which Dave Franco and Alison Brie, married in life, play a couple whose devotion manifests as literal tissue fusion. The premise is gnarly and the practical effects are committed. A cave, a pool of water, a New Age church that collapsed, and a curse that pulls two people toward a single androgynous body the crew nicknamed Tillie. The film is loose in its grasp of the Greek myth of Hermaphroditus and tighter in its grasp of a marriage in freefall.
On the matter of social consciousness, the record is thin. The cast is overwhelmingly white, and the rural setting offers little room for the demographic commentary that marks the contemporary horror landscape. Millie anchors the narrative and proposes the marriage, though the film frames this as relationship drama, not a thesis on gender. Race is not a subject here. Neither is climate, nor economics, nor the politics of the body, despite all that flesh. The one genuine flash of cultural friction comes from Jamie, a supporting character revealed to be one of two married men fused together through the church, a same-sex union woven into the film's argument about eros. That detail was digitally erased for the Chinese release, which refashioned the couple as heterosexual and drew the ire of viewers who found the edit contemptuous of the community it removed.
The film lectures less than its premise might suggest. Jamie delivers a brief account of the Symposium's theory of love, but the exposition sits inside conversation, not sermon. The horror is interpersonal and supernatural, untouched by the cultural crusades that animate so much of the current genre output. The lingering impression is craft and squirm, not doctrine. A sommelier would call this a clean vintage: light on message, heavy on viscera, and served at the temperature of a collapsing marriage.
RAWSCORE_PLACEHOLDER: 12.6
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Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country, abandoning all that is familiar in their lives except each other. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love, and their flesh.
Questions about Together
Is Together woke?
No — Together is not woke, scoring 19 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Together have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by LGBTQ+ Themes (48). On LGBTQ+ Themes: Jamie is revealed to be one of two married men fused together through the church, a genuine same-sex couple central to the plot's thesis.
How does Together compare to other 2025 movies?
It ranks #105 of the 217 films from 2025 we've scored; their average is 26. The wokest is STRAW (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.