Directing: B+
Acting: A
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: A-

I don’t think anyone would be faulted for being skeptical of a two-person movie both set in and directly addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The movie makes no explicit claim to be about this, but we are still talking about collective trauma, the likes of which we have not experienced on a broad cultural level since 9/11—an event, incidentally, which occurred 20 years ago this month, and about which no particularly successful mainstream movie has ever directly addressed in the same way. A few movies did try, but even those were a few years later, and the public was not especially interested in reliving it.

And here we are now, with Together, a movie that sets its starkly frank examination of a long-term relationship within the context of stay-home orders in the UK, released while the pandemic rages on, and I watched it in a nearly-empty movie theater (literally there was one other person in there besides myself), with a mask on, while the characters onscreen talked about the strain the pandemic is putting on their relationship. For them, the pandemic is in its early stages. They have no idea that I will be hearing about it from them, breaking the third wall and speaking directly to me, fully eighteen months later.

And yet? I find myself stunned by how well Together actually works. It’s not perfect—I’ll get to that—but still, it really, really works. This is a challenge for any movie in which the characters remain within the same space for the full duration of the film in the best of circumstances, but from the opening scene, co-directors Stephen Daldry (The Hours) and Justin Martin, working from a crackling script by Dennis Kelly, have co-leads James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan speaking to each other and to us so effectively, it’s like watching a riveting two-person play.

Again: a play adapted into a movie, in which the setting never changes, rarely works either. This one is not adapted from a play, but the constraint is the same; with the exception of occasional interstitial shots of their neighborhood showing empty streets, the camera never leaves the inside of their house. This is a recipe for boredom, and yet I could not look away.

It would be naive to call Together a reflection of any kind of “universal” experience, except that what these characters go through is quite specifically the same as what millions—billions—around the globe experienced. It does get specific to the UK, and there are moments when Together reads like a personal indictment against the way the UK government handled the pandemic, particularly in the beginning. I’m a little bit more prone to empathy—sure, there is no question that thousands and maybe millions of lives could have been saved had action been taken sooner, but this was also a wildly new experience for all of us, and particularly in the beginning, no one knew for certain what the right choices even were.

It’s with all this as a backdrop that we watch a relationship between McAvoy and Horgan’s relationship evolved, from dread at the prospect of having to spend all their time at home together after already logging many years in which to stoke deep resentments and hatred, to slowly realizing over the next year that they’re in denial about how much they actually still love each other. It’s both sweet and brutal, and what I love about it is how it’s a largely unsentimental love story, one about the machinations of truly long term commitment, rather than the idealism of young love. There is no “happily ever after” here, but rather “maybe we’re not quite as miserable as we thought.”

And, to be clear, a whole lot of Together is quite funny. It’s also at times deeply serious, and, somewhat to my surprise, an effective way to process the aforementioned collective trauma of this pandemic, which we really don’t talk about enough. I found the experience almost shockingly therapeutic.

And yes, at times, brutal. There’s a scene in this movie in which Horgan’s character processes the loss of her mother, and having to say goodbye to her in the hospital over FaceTime while pulled over to the side of the road in her car. The scene is gut wrenching, and I cried. And I cried. This scene unlocked some dormant grief of my own, after having lost my own mother last year. My mom’s death had nothing to do with COVID, but my grief was still affected by it—as was that of anyone who lost a loved one over the past year and a half, for any reason. I didn’t just cry when I watched Sharon Horgan detail the unfairness of her mother dying alone. For a few seconds, I wept. I hadn’t cried like this at a movie in a good twenty years, and never for such a deeply, viscerally personal reason.

It’s easy to imagine Together having a similar affect on many others. This makes it hard to imagine anyone taking my advice to see it. Is it too soon for a movie like this? I would argue it’s not. For me, it was like an emotional breakthrough.

And I haven’t even yet mentioned the stupendous performances of both James McAvoy an Sharon Horgan, who have great chemistry both as vicious bickerers and as a couple rediscovering how much they care about each other. The writing is great, and their performances still elevate it. My one real complaint would be their young son, who exists as a plot contrivance and for most of the film just moves wordlessly around the background of each scene, like an afterthought. The kid, played by Samuel Logan, literally has no lines until just a couple in the last ten minutes or so of the film. Together would have been better off either with a more capable child actor who could be a part of actual character development, or with no child at all and a better reason given for this middle-aged couple to have stayed together so long after their relationship has seemingly soured.

Setting the child aside, though, Together is an incredible construction of compelling dialogue, interspersed with fantastic—if occasionally soap-boxy—monologues. This could have been just a movie about a small family dealing with pandemic lockdowns, or it could have been just a movie about a charismatic couple’s crumbling yet barely salvageable relationship. The fact that it is both should way it down to the point of intolerability, and still it succeeds against all odds. You probably still won’t watch it, and I totally get it, and yet I am compelled to say I can’t recommend it enough.

*You won’t believe how hard it is to look away.*

Overall: B+