Anyone familiar with the premise of Together, the new body horror film starring real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco, likely has one question on their mind entering the theater.
Are these two going to merge, or what?
The stomach-churning hook of the movie, which sees a co-dependent couple physically beginning to fuse, has a grotesque promise built into it, so naturally viewers are going to be curious how far director Michael Shanks pushes things.
Spoilers from Together from here on out!
And for those who have seen Together, you know that Brie's and Franco's characters, Millie and Tim, go all the way.
The film culminates in an otherworldly fusing sequence—scored by The Spice Girls' "2 Become 1," naturally.
And according to Shanks, that was always how Millie and Tim were going to end up—all the way back to the first draft—even down to the shots he used to show off their hideous half-fused form.
"Going back and reading the first draft, I'm really pleased that I'd written into the script the camera movement, that it was just like an instinct," he told Gold Derby. "I was like, 'No matter what, with this concept, this is how it's gonna end.'"
But even after such a shocking sequence, Together still has one trick up its sleeve. When Millie's parents finally arrive (Chekov's in-laws), they're greeted by an androgynous person that looks a lot like both Franco and Brie, right before the movie cuts to the credits.
Upon reflection, Shanks saw similarities between Together's ending and the final moments of a film he enjoys, Dennis Villeneuve's Enemy, saying both movies ask, "What if you ended a film with a crazy visual and then cut to credits? I kind of love that as — not that it's a funny movie — a punch line. A bit like, 'What the hell?' And then the credits hit."
The new hybrid character, called Tillie on set, was achieved by first applying practical effects makeup to Brie to make her resemble her husband.
"The makeup team made the iconic Dave Franco eyebrows and stuck them on her and gave her contact lenses out of Dave's color," Shanks said. "And then in visual effects, we added Dave's nose and Dave's jaw to that character. So it's really an amalgamation of both of them. I love that shot. I'm so proud of that ending."
