Le Monde's opinion – Worth seeing

On screen, the subject of couples has been tackled in countless genres, from romantic comedies to break-up dramas. For his first feature film, Australian director Michael Shanks chose to explore it through the lens of horror. After all, the anxieties are plenty – finding the right distance from a loved one is often difficult, and the threat of loss looms constantly. Together stands out for its keen understanding that fears are tied as much to separation as they are to merging with another person, and for its ability to walk a tightrope between those conflicting feelings.

Tim (Dave Franco), a musician emerging from a long creative slump, and Millie (Alison Brie), a passionate schoolteacher, reach a turning point in their relationship. After being together so long they can hardly remember who they were apart, they prepare to move to a remote small town where Millie has been assigned a new post – far from friends and their old lives. Millie is excited by the change, while Tim is left with more doubts than enthusiasm.

Yet Together does not start there. From its opening, the story takes on the tone of a fairy tale. Deep in a forest near where Tim and Millie are about to settle, at the bottom of a chasm, lies a mysterious water source. Dogs – and a vanished couple – have already encountered its strange effects, which Shanks gradually reveals during the film's first half.

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