By Bailey Pennick

“Well, Dave read it first and decided we would do this together,” says Alison Brie from the Eccles stage after the world premiere of Together. The Dave she’s referring to is Dave Franco, her co-star and her husband, who happens to be cracking up right next to her. He corroborates her story, “Yeah, I read the script and I immediately turned to her and — she’s correct — I said ‘I’m forcing you to do this with me.’” A couple being completely inseparable on a long work assignment to a remote place in the woods? Hmm, sounds kind of familiar, especially if you just watched writer-director Michael Shanks’ feature debut with the packed Sundance Film Festival crowd still giggling and reeling from what they saw.

The Midnight film follows Tim (Franco) and Millie (Brie) as they leave their city life — and supportive village — to a small, remote town in the woods where Millie got a new job as a schoolteacher. Though the couple has been together for a decade, they’re currently in a commitment limbo with her public proposal going sideways, his lack of job or hobbies, and their general inability to be separate from each other.

“The jumping-off point [for the film] was about the fear of losing yourself in a forever monogamous relationship in that kind of codependent way where you don’t know who you are without your partner and vice versa,” Shanks says. He pauses, flashing a big grin. “But, now to be speaking in front of a room of people that have actually seen the film, for me it’s a film about how love is beautiful. And, hopefully, the ending — for what it is — is, you know, the ultimate commitment of ‘I love you, babe.’”

Together’s journey to that ultimate lovefest goes through a lot of gnarly twists and turns courtesy of some mystical cave water that the pair drinks after being trapped during a hike-turned-torrential storm. Suddenly Tim and Millie don’t just want to be together in the relationship sense, they can’t physically be apart. While limbs fusing, hair eating, and supernatural forces propelling two bodies to become one probably sounds terrifying — and don’t worry, some of the images from this film you’ll never be able to get out of your brain — Together is a fun ride because that’s the way the Australian filmmaker looks at life. 

“I find I watch, like, a horror or a sci-fi film and there’s no sense of levity, that’s just not my experience of life,” he explains. “I’ve laughed at funerals! All the darkest moments of life, there’s always humor. And just the absurdity of the thing, it wouldn’t have worked for me if we were just taking it deadly seriously the whole time.” The audience is hanging on his words, uncovering more about this rising talent. “And, uh, also I just think it makes it more fun?” The crowd goes wild.