Pop quiz: When’s the last time Dave Franco turned in a memorable performance? Without James Franco or Alison Brie?
Increasingly, it feels like Dave Franco only has a career because of his far more capable brother. (Say what you will about that piece of shit, but James Franco is demonstrably more talented and accomplished than his little brother ever was.) To say nothing of Alison Brie, who’s not only Franco’s better half but also his funnier and more charismatic three-quarters.
Sure, Dave Franco has fluked his way into some legitimately good movies that didn’t have his wife or his big brother involved. But did you even know he was in If Beale Street Could Talk? If you saw Love Lies Bleeding, do you remember anything about his performance? Even in the ongoing Now You See Me series (That series is still going, what the hell?), Franco can’t hold the screen unless he’s standing next to Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and all the other much bigger stars in that cast.
The point being that Dave Franco seems to get by with everyone pretending he’s some big-shot above-the-title name, even though (so far) he’s incapable of doing anything on his own and he’s only any good when he’s riding someone else’s coattails. Which brings us to Together.
This is the movie made by Franco and Brie. Yes, the film was technically written and directed by Michael Shanks, but he’s just a pawn making his feature debut. Franco and Brie are both given prominent producer credits, their names are both comfortably above the title, and there’s not much of anyone else in the cast worth mentioning. This is their movie, it was very much made in their image and sold off their involvement.
Our story concerns Tim and Millie, a couple going through a bit of a rough patch as they move to rural upstate New York for Millie’s new teaching job. Thus Tim leaves behind his friends and connections in New York City, all but guaranteeing that his aspirations of musical stardom will be stillborn. More to the point, the basic premise is that somehow, Tim and Millie become so physically and impossibly attracted to each other that their bodies are at serious risk of fusing together into some mutated half-dead abomination.
How is this fusion happening? Never explained! Sure, there’s a bit of hand-waving with some supernatural cult nonsense, but none of it explains how the underlying mechanism works or where it came from. Which is kind of a big fucking oversight for the device that powers the entire plot and premise of the whole damn film.
Then again, nobody cares. This is an allegory. It doesn’t matter if the world-building is bullshit. It doesn’t even really matter if the plot doesn’t work. All that matters is the message. We are here for the use of body horror and the basic conceit of two people fusing together as a metaphor for relationship drama.
And the good news is, that much works. For the first two-thirds of the movie, at least.
It’s important to note that all through the second act, this strange situation is only going one way. Millie is perfectly capable in her day-to-day life, but Tim shuts down and loses all control of himself when Millie is too far away for too long. It’s Tim (or whatever’s afflicting him) that’s trying to subsume Millie, and not the other way around.
By the same token, it’s Millie who’s got a stable career while Tim doesn’t. Millie’s making money and putting a roof over both their heads while Tim stays at home and records guitar tracks for gigs that are never going to happen. Granted, Tim is going through some unspecified family trauma that never gets sufficiently explored, but the fact remains that Millie has emotional and sexual needs that Tim simply isn’t meeting anymore. Worst of all, Tim is acutely insecure about how much he depends on Millie, and that resentment fuels a downward spiral that only drives a deeper wedge between them.
The closest we get to mutual dependence is that Tim can’t drive and Millie can’t cook. But that feels like bullshit as a justification for how the two complete each other and need each other to live. From where I’m sitting, it looks like Tim needs her a lot more than Millie needs him. That said, it’s certainly true that codependence is a tricky thing, and it’s not always easy to tell when a mutually healthy relationship turns toxic or vice versa.
Basically put, what we’ve got here is a fascinating allegory about a woman stuck in a toxic relationship with a man who’s literally trying to subsume her entire being for his benefit. It’s a neat concept. But then the third act comes. There is so much wrong with that third act.
First of all, the third act begins when Millie is suddenly attracted to Tim. Never mind that this has only ever been a one-way curse through most of the film and the affliction has never affected Millie in this way up until now, the curse affects them both in the same way at this point for no reason at all.
The other big problem is in how it all ends. Unfortunately, that means I’m heavily restricted by spoilers. To put this as simply and spoiler-free as I can, our characters are repeatedly warned about a particular outcome. The filmmakers put a lot of time and effort into framing this particular outcome as The Bad Ending, morally repugnant and monstrous. And then the Bad Ending happens.
Which is fair enough. This is horror, after all. If the Bad Ending happens and our protagonists die, that’s totally acceptable in this genre. Except that the Bad Ending isn’t really framed as the Bad Ending. All of a sudden, at the last possible minute, it’s framed as… good? Kinda? Possibly?
The ambiguous tone of those last few minutes is tricky. As I’ve said before, this is a topic that requires some level of nuance. But this ending comes by way of inexplicable last-minute curveballs that don’t fit the tone or direction of what came before. All throughout the first and second acts, the themes and the plot were both developing in a direction that could only have worked if Dave Franco leaned harder into playing the heel. And right up until the last few minutes, the plot and themes — even the characters themselves! — were steadily building up the case that Millie would be better off without Tim.
The problem is that these filmmakers couldn’t or wouldn’t let either one of our leads play a heel. And they didn’t want to end the story without Tim and Millie living happily ever after. Not to say that working within those limitations was impossible, but the filmmakers don’t put in the necessary work to earn such a drastic shift in direction. Thus the ambiguity feels less like a clever means of encouraging audience introspection and more like a chickenshit cop-out.
With all of that said, there is indeed a lot about this film to like. As a vehicle for Franco and Brie, it’s fantastic. The two of them have a fearless and effortless chemistry that wouldn’t be possible with anyone else, and that’s easily the foremost reason to see this picture.
Of course the body horror is another crucial selling point, but it really shouldn’t be. The Substance delivered more and far superior body horror effects on a comparable budget. There’s one particular scene that should be massively bloody, but the film cuts away right before that happens. The climax is by far the most grotesque scene in the movie, and it cuts away before completion. Even so, the plot makes up for that loss with some neat atmosphere and chilling tension, not to mention some neat wire stunts and contortion. I might further add that there’s a place in the world for a body horror film that’s not quite gut-churning enough to drive away a mainstream audience, and I can respect a movie that strikes such a balance.
Ultimately, Together looks and feels like the filmmakers had a fantastic premise without any idea what to do with it. (Almost like they stole the idea from someone else…) It sucks that the filmmakers had the right cast, they had the right balance of body horror, they were heading in the right direction, only to whiff it in the third act because nobody had the guts to take the plot to its full potential. This could’ve been a powerful statement about toxic dependency, but all we get is some wishy-washy resolution that could be interpreted in any number of ways to suit the preconceived notions of the audience.
Based solely on what I’m seeing with the onstage product, it looks an awful lot like the filmmakers watered down the film to preserve Dave Franco’s image. Which means that ironically, the film did indeed end up making a point about toxic dependence. Alison, honey, I’m not saying you have to leave your husband, but at least stop making movies with him. If nothing else, the film proves you’re so much better than this.