The Daily Stream: Together Together Is A Rare Platonic Love Story
Bleecker Street By Valerie Ettenhofer/March 22, 2022 1:24 pm EST
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: “Together Together” Where You Can Stream It: Hulu, Kanopy
The Pitch: Successful forty-something Matt (Ed Helms) has decided to have a baby, but he doesn’t have a partner. Twenty-something Anna (Patti Harrison) is a barista who’s estranged from her family. She applies to be Matt’s surrogate, and when she successfully gets pregnant, the two begin a delicate, convention-defying relationship. This tender comedic drama from writer-director Nikole Beckwith takes place across the course of Anna’s pregnancy, as the pair navigate the boundaries of a partnership that’s rooted in a transaction but grows into something organic and vital. This is not a rom-com, but a rare platonic love story.
The Daily Stream: Together Together Is A Rare Platonic Love Story
Bleecker Street
By Valerie Ettenhofer/March 22, 2022 1:24 pm EST
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: “Together Together” Where You Can Stream It: Hulu, Kanopy
The Pitch: Successful forty-something Matt (Ed Helms) has decided to have a baby, but he doesn’t have a partner. Twenty-something Anna (Patti Harrison) is a barista who’s estranged from her family. She applies to be Matt’s surrogate, and when she successfully gets pregnant, the two begin a delicate, convention-defying relationship. This tender comedic drama from writer-director Nikole Beckwith takes place across the course of Anna’s pregnancy, as the pair navigate the boundaries of a partnership that’s rooted in a transaction but grows into something organic and vital. This is not a rom-com, but a rare platonic love story.
The Movie: “Together Together”
Where You Can Stream It: Hulu, Kanopy
The Pitch: Successful forty-something Matt (Ed Helms) has decided to have a baby, but he doesn’t have a partner. Twenty-something Anna (Patti Harrison) is a barista who’s estranged from her family. She applies to be Matt’s surrogate, and when she successfully gets pregnant, the two begin a delicate, convention-defying relationship. This tender comedic drama from writer-director Nikole Beckwith takes place across the course of Anna’s pregnancy, as the pair navigate the boundaries of a partnership that’s rooted in a transaction but grows into something organic and vital. This is not a rom-com, but a rare platonic love story.
Why it’s essential viewing
Matt and Anna aren’t perfect, or even perfect for each other. She’s evasive, he’s invasive, and for the first third of the movie, their dynamic is borderline painful to watch. But as they get to know each other, “Together Together” relaxes into a story that’s charming and lovely, if never uncomplicated. The film is quietly defiant in a half-dozen different ways, from casting a transgender actress as a pregnant cisgender character to explicitly examining the tropes associated with its central dynamic (hello, Woody Allen) before throwing them by the wayside. Harrison, best known before this for hilarious and jarring comedic guest spots, is a natural in a lead role that often sees Anna saying one thing and feeling another.
On paper, “Together Together” may seem like a slight movie, but like its central relationship, it’s actually a bit more complicated. Lovely and slyly powerful, it feels like a much-needed antidote to a long tradition of oversimplified on-screen love.
