Together
BBCLockdown cinema is as infectious a disease as the pandemic that caused them. Together is one of many Covid-19 features, one that sees famous looking faces trapped together in their fictional homes. As if Locked Down and Songbird weren’t enough. James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan star as the unnamed couple found within Together, whose relationship unwinds and breaks down. What else would it do? Not exactly prime viewing to see them thrive and struggle on with grand willpower and courage, is it? That just won’t do. Seeing them struggle is not just what audiences want, but what director Stephen Daldry rightly identifies as the most interesting facet of their relationship.
Sickening it may be, and even a tad ghoulish, there is interest and intrigue to the fraught love between He (McAvoy) and She (Horgan). Together shows audiences the realities of lockdown or, rather, what it perceives as the reality of lockdown. For many, this was not the case, and the lavish luxury on display throughout Together objects to the notion that these characters are worried not just about their future, but themselves. If the film wishes to be relatable, then it fails because of how broad it is. Yet the broadness is also meant to comfort the audience. Competently shot, at least, but the shouts and screams behind closed doors are going to surprise nobody. Grim reminders of the death toll are plastered across the bottom of the screen as Horgan and McAvoy complain to the camera.
Much of Together would rely so often on its writing, but the delivery to the camera crushes the spontaneity of it. “Opposites attract, you know what else attracts? Serial killers to victims,” Horgan quips. Although, the actual realism to that is poorly explained and comes out of nowhere. Those offhand remarks audiences may hear in arguments or seething rants are founded on an inability to expand beyond pop culture. True crime is popular. In goes a line about murderers. All the pieces fall together rather simply, and expectedly so. An overreliance on talking to the camera makes the transitions to character conversation clunky and uninteresting, for the detail has already been explained to the camera. Daldry at least tries to make this work, but his efforts are interrupted rather frequently by the reminder of a simplicity that could have brought far better results.
Together showcases a breakdown in a lockdown, but not convincingly. Its larger-than-life prose, fourth-wall breaks and attitude to the events that are still too raw for adaptation are flimsy. Horgan and McAvoy carry this material as best they can. There is only so much they can do as they hurl half-hearted insults at one another, carry the stress and strain of lockdown life and do their best to come across as broad and inviting, yet seething and emotional as possible. Such a drab contrast is picked up on almost immediately, and with no time to get to know these characters, audiences may feel like the uncomfortable neighbour, popping around for a cup of tea and suddenly finding themselves in the No Man’s Land of relationship troubles. It is not really their business, they have no side, and they’re really hoping it wraps up soon. Together has the good grace to do that much, at least.