Together Together
Bleecker StreetIn her sophomore feature effort, Together Together, filmmaker Nikole Beckwith demands attention with a living yet equally devastating look at both the love one can experience and the inability that has to fill the larger holes that plague one's soul. Following the single, yet aging, Matt (Ed Helms) as he hires a woman named Anna (Patti Harrison) to be his surrogate, the film finds each of these individuals navigating a confusing mess of emotions which ranges from a true love for one another to a sense of hopelessness as their time together is defined by its inevitable end. Both incredibly charming and haunting, Together Together is a confident and authentic exploration of these complex and overdetermined feelings.
What will catch most audiences off guard – at least at first – is the film's undeniable charm and personality. Especially towards the first act, where Matt and Anna are just meeting for the first time and are awkwardly getting to know each other while still unsure of what role each will play in each other's lives over the next number of months, the film builds a backbone made of quirky jokes and personable dialogue, which is nearly impossible not to fall for. Where there is the occasional line, mostly coming from Matt, that might feel like the film is pushing too hard to find the humour within his character, the screenplay – also from Nikole Beckwith – is often a resounding success with its humour. Both relevant and legitimately hilarious, there are countless small lines and back and forth between characters that manage to get the rare audible laugh that many modern comedies fail to achieve.
So much of this and the rest of the film's success comes down to the chemistry felt between Ed Helms and Patti Harrison. Harrison, specifically, feels like a revelation with her performance: both in the undeniably charming personality and devastating emotion she is able to bring to the role. As the two push and pull each other in various ways, as the already complex nature of their relationship gets tested and reanalysed, it is impossible not to simply wish for these characters to find the happiness they both crave – even if the road to that joy is incredibly unclear. Both these characters are broken in their own unique ways, but to see them together slowly finding a road to happiness is reassuring and beyond satisfying.
In a similar nature to a film like Call Me By Your Name, for example, this reassuring and genuinely beautiful story of an authentic and rare connection between two people is a trick by the film to catch the audience off guard with its deeper emotional layers. Individually, both Matt and Anna have their own demons they must face. Matt feels alone and is caught in a mid-life crisis that will feel all too real for most audience members. Anna has an incredibly strained relationship with her family and also feels alone in the world with a lack of connections or direction. Whilst both individuals bring each other comfort, neither comes close to filling these voids completely and due to the very nature of their relationship, this is a temporary bandage than a real solution. When Anna gives birth, these two will go their separate ways, for better or for worse. Even if this is common knowledge for these two, it doesn’t make that reality any less painful as it slowly creeps upon them.
This is where the genius of these performances is felt the most. At no point does the film openly say what is going through these characters' heads and instead allows the actors to show how they feel. It is authentic and powerful to see both the happiness and pain that can form simply from their expressions, proving the talents of not just Helms and Harrison but also the direction from Beckwith. These three are working together on the exact same page to find something deeper and that is felt throughout the film's runtime. This leads to a haunting ending, which might leave some disappointed but feels nearly flawless in its execution and impact. Ultimately, Together Together isn't a happy or joyful film. It is a painful acceptance of the complex struggle which is the human experience, specifically when it comes to the relationships that can form between individuals; due to the nature of the film's story, it really couldn't be anything else. Had the film went a more satisfying direction, it easily could be judged for romanticising an unhealthy ignorance towards boundaries and would feel rather inauthentic. It isn't the ending the audience will be rooting for, but it is the ending the audience ultimately needs.
Looking past just what the film accomplishes on a thematic level, it is also worth pointing out the technical sides to the film which also feel rather strong. The cinematography from Frank Barrera is the perfect mixture of intimate and distant playing well off the struggle between Matt and Anna who are also thematically juggling these two states. The score from Alex Somers is also rather stunning, continuing his incredibly underrated career which has included the likes of Honey Boy, Captain Fantastic, Miss Americana, and Charm City Kings –to name a few.
The more one sits with Together Together, the more it grows on them. Both incredibly charming and painful, the film isn't an easy or completely fun experience but feels undoubtedly worthy. The film shines both as a comedy and emotionally draining drama with both of these identities playing off of each other rather brilliantly despite the seemingly volatile effect they would have when put together. Both as a director and screenwriter, this is quite the achievement from Nikole Beckwith, who joins the ever-growing list of truly spectacular young artists to watch out for. If this is the quality she is able to achieve on her 2nd feature, it is truly scary to think of what she can accomplish as she grows both as a person and filmmaker.
