Dave Franco and Alison Brie Get ‘Together’ Onscreen

Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who’ve been married since 2017, have collaborated plenty in the past. They both appeared in the 2017 comedies The Little Hours and The Disaster Artist, and Franco directed Brie in his movies The Rental and Somebody I Used to Know.

But in their new film, Together, the offscreen couple step up their intimacy onscreen. The new horror film, which will have its world premiere at Sundance on January 26, follows a longtime couple who move to the countryside, where their relationship will be tested in transformative ways.

Written and directed by Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks, Together is a wild ride with intense, visceral horror scenes. But even more terrifying is its exploration of the codependency that can develop in a long-term relationship. “It’s easy for us to relate to this main idea that people can lose their identity in a relationship,” says Brie. “When you’ve been with someone for a really long time, sometimes it’s difficult to tell where your personality ends and your partner’s begins.”

For Franco and Brie, the film was a chance to use their offscreen connection and translate it onscreen. Their charisma and chemistry shine through, even as their characters are going through surreal and sometimes harrowing experiences. It was a new test for them as both actors and as a couple. “Nearly every scene in this movie is dealing with heightened emotions and extreme physicality,” Franco tells Vanity Fair. “We knew going in that it would either end in divorce or we’d be more codependent than ever.”

“It’s kind of an old cliche to talk about ‘write what you know,’ but I have been in my relationship with my partner for almost 16 years now, since being a teenager,” says Shanks, who makes his feature film directorial debut with Together. He was inspired to write the script after realizing how intertwined his identity had become with that of his own partner and by looking around at the couples within his friend group. “There comes a time, I think, in every kind of long-term relationship where we realize, Wow, I’ve been with this person more than I’ve not been with this person. And we live in the same house, we breathe the same air, we eat the same food, we have the same friends,” he says. “At a certain point we think, I don’t know who I am without her. She maybe doesn’t know who she is without me.” He wanted to take that concept of codependency and explore it in the most extreme way possible.

The script follows Tim and Millie, a couple whose relationship has grown strained over the years. When they decide to move to the countryside, leaving all their friends behind, they have a scary encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force that threatens their relationship, and their lives.

Shanks began writing the script with his own journey in mind for the character of Tim, a struggling musician. At first, his protagonist was a “much nastier character,” he says. “The first draft was very much about why can’t this really flawed and childish artist—i.e. myself—just wake up and realize that…what’s important is this beautiful person that you’re in love with.”

Shanks knew he’d need to find the right pair of actors to star as the couple, since their characters are so deeply intertwined. He happened to be meeting with Franco to discuss another project when he brought up this script. Franco was interested, and brought it to Brie, who agreed it would be a new challenge for them. Shanks got a call from his agent to let him know the couple was interested in starring in it. “I was walking down to my local pub with a shit-eating grin on my face just buzzing,” he says. “It was amazing.”

He had a Zoom call with Brie soon after, and then she and Franco both signed on as producers as well. “I was so struck by the writing and by the set pieces in this movie, and how they were really informed by the theme that was being explored,” says Brie. “Everything is coming from that core theme of taking intimacy past a healthy level into codependency and the possible physical manifestations of that.”

The shoot for the independent film took place in Melbourne and was quick at only around 21 days. So the filmmakers and actors had to work at breakneck speed. “The movie’s very intense physically and emotionally,” says Brie, “and I think the fact that we’re really in a relationship, and Dave and I have such a shorthand with each other that at times it’s nonverbal—that helped to streamline communication in a way that turned out to be really valuable.”

Shanks agrees that in retrospect, having a pair of leads who were also a real couple was key to making the film. Production even looked for a couple to also play their stand-ins, thanks to how physically intimate certain scenes had to be.

It helped that every day, Franco and Brie could spend their time after shooting preparing together for the next day. They’d often talk about upcoming scenes while at their Airbnb or walking the streets of Melbourne after a day of filming. “We realized early on that a secret weapon we had was the fact that we were living together and that we could rehearse as much as we wanted,” says Franco. “And so we really knew this script inside and out. We could come in and hit the ground running every day.”

Because of the stunts and big set pieces, which often involved prosthetics, the shoot was demanding on the main actors, who were put through the ringer physically. “We tortured them every day,” says Shanks. “Every day they’re screaming or something awful is going on, or they’re being thrown around in dirty puddles or climbing up ropes. And there was never a problem. They were just like, ‘Okay, you need us to do it again?’”

Together, which is seeking distribution at the fest, will give audiences the sort of squirm-in-their-seat experience that you hope for with Sundance’s Midnight Program. It’s an experience that Shanks is looking forward to. “I think there has been kind of a hyperactivity to some of the stuff that I’ve made. I always picture the audience’s engagement and never take it for granted,” says Shanks. “I really do make stuff for an audience to react to.”

For Franco and Brie, the experience reminded them of how different their own relationship is from the one they’re capturing onscreen. But it also brought them closer, both literally and figuratively. “I feel like I’m at my best when I’m working with her because it’s impossible to be fake in front of one another,” says Franco. “We just know each other so well that if anything comes out of us that feels inauthentic, we understand that the other one sees it too.”

This feature is part of Awards Insider’s exclusive Sundance 2025 coverage.