TOGETHER is a genre-defying horror love story that has already made a strong impression at SXSW and Sundance. It follows Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie), a couple who leave their city life behind in search of peace, only to encounter a terrifying and unnatural force that threatens to consume their relationship—and their flesh.
As Together prepares to launch in Australian cinemas on July 31, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the film’s writer and director, Michael Shanks, about crafting the more gruesome moments of the film, and how his own relationship weaved it’s way into the script writing process.
Nick: Michael, it’s such a pleasure to meet you! How are you?
Michael Shanks: I’m really good. Thank you for finding the time!
Nick: I appreciate your time! I loved the film! I’ve had the chance to see it twice now and it’s easily one of my favourites of the year. And I’d love to start our chat with the fact that you’ve been quite open about the fact that these characters, and their relationship, is inspired by some of your own experiences with your partner of 16 years. I’ve been with my partner for 10 years, and there were absolutely things in the film that resonated with us! I’m curious to know, do you find more catharsis in creating art, or consuming art?
Michael Shanks: Probably more so with consuming art. I mean, what was kind of a point of difference with this project from anything else I’ve done is that there was a real sincerity to this. I sort of was resisting it at first, and was kind of writing the story with more generic characters. But ultimately, I couldn’t help it, and the more I put my own experiences and my own idiosyncrasies, and flaws into the script, the better it became.
Everything else I’d done before this is so, like, ironic and sarcastic. There was something really cathartic about knocking on my partner’s door at home and being like, “Hey, that argument we had two years ago where you called me a piece of shit – what did I call you back?” [laughs] And writing that into the script, yeah, it’s been wild. It’s been strange. I’m a pretty private person, and now I’ve made this thing that’s airing my dirty laundry to the world.
Nick: But like myself, many audiences have resonated with this relationship because it feels real. How does that make you feel?
Michael Shanks: Well… it’s amazing. Because I think some of the specifics of the characters are very specific. But the core themes are really universal, which has been really edifying. There was a screening in Texas where a guy came up to me and said, “My wife begged me not to talk to you, but that main character is me. And I think I need to get out…”. I was like why are you telling me this?
Nick: You kind of weirdly become a therapist in that situation…
Michael Walsh: Yeah, which I’m absolutely qualified for [laughs]. But there’s a line early on in the film where Alison’s character says to Dave’s character, “Are we still together because we love each other or because we’re used to each other?” And I think we’ve all either been in or observed couples that maybe are just used to each other, and can’t deal with how terrifying it is to suddenly split yourself apart from somebody when you already so dramatically share a life, and that’s a scary thing to confront.
Nick: We don’t see a lot of characters casually smoking these days in film, and I love that it becomes a part of the foundation of the characters with their moment in the cave. I’m curious to know what were the narrative decisions by having both of these characters reveal that they’ve taken up smoking?
Michael Shanks: It’s funny. I wonder if this weren’t an independent film, if we would have been able to keep the smoking in! There’s not a lot of smoking in modern set films. But, this was completely without a studio, so I wonder if that would’ve been one of the notes so we can get a higher rating by not having these guys smoke.
To me, that little moment where they reveal that they’re secretly smoking behind each other’s back was if you have this couple that peels away the kind of bullshit in their relationship, they’ll see that they’ve got more in common than they knew. The fact that they’re keeping the same secret, I think it’s kind of sweet, but we’ve only seen them bickering up until that point, so it shows that they are really compatible.
Nick: I am a horror sicko, and I loved the body horror in this film. There are some truly fucked up moments in this film. How do you balance creating something that is shocking, but pushes forward the narrative, and something that is just shocking to get a good response out of the audience?
Michael Shanks: Narratively, it made sense and heightened the emotional experience of these characters. I’m a maximalist filmmaker, as well, and one of my North stars is to create visuals I’ve never seen before, and therefore, an audience has never seen before. This is a premise you can only do once. This is kind of a one and done concept. I wanted to make sure I got every single bit of juice out of this concept. So, if these characters are drawn to each other, and their flesh starts to fuse and stick together, what are 10 crazy sequences you can do with that? And how do we find the budget to make that all happen?
There is one in particular with hair, that sure, if you took it out, the film would still narratively make sense, but once that came to me, I was just like, “That’s awful! That’s disgusting! We gotta put that in the movie!” That was maybe one of my favourite moments on set when we shot that. I had to convince the producers to keep it. I couldn’t believe people were letting us do this. It was so crazy and disgusting. There was a take of that scene where Dave was kind of retching in the middle of it, and I was like, “Cut! That’s great! But I think the retching was a bit much.” And he was like, “That wasn’t acting. I was actually retching during the scene!”
Nick: Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen the film twice now. And there is a small line of dialogue that I caught on to that reveals something that doesn’t actually get fully revealed until later on in the story. I’m curious to know how much conscious thought gets put into the rewatchability aspect of the film, and leaving those breadcrumbs for audiences to pick up on as they watch?
Michael Shanks: I’m not as worried about the rewatchability, but on a subconscious level, there are lines in the first half of the film that are repeated in different contexts in the second half of the film. I mean, I hope people can connect the dots on the first watch.
I kind of was self taught with screenwriting. Like, I didn’t go to film school or anything, but I did a Screen Australia weekend where there was this wonderful script writer called Mike Jones, and he taught you how a script worked. And he was talking about Shaun of the Dead, which is one of my favourite movies, and how that is a film of set-ups and pay-offs. It’s such a tight script. And I really wanted that feeling in this film. Like the line about her parents coming for lunch on Sunday is not there by accident.
Thank you so much to Michael for his time, and to Kismet Films for organising the interview. Together is in cinemas July 31.
