Together Together (2021)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, April 29

R Running Time: 90 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • A smart, clever relationship movie which goes a different direction than many might anticipate.

  • Ed Helms and Patti Harrison create wonderful chemistry as they develop a friendship around a single man and the surrogate-to-be of his first child.

  • Nikole Beckwith’s writing is strong, fearless at times, and she never takes her characters for granted. This makes for a better film than some may be anticipating.

NO

  • The film could potentially be viewed as slight - and some have criticized the story as predictable and formulaic when you strip it down to its core.

  • There will be some who find this premise to be off-putting, as if the responsibilities around having a child come simply secondary to fulfilling the loneliness in someone’s life.

  • For some, the film raises more questions than it does answers.


OUR REVIEW

A smart, astute, and clever comedic drama about two individuals looking for something significant in life to fulfill them, Together Together is the second feature from writer/director Nikole Beckwith. Beckwith’s ability to navigate the complexities of loneliness and the impact of feeling unloved and neglected creates quite the thoughtful film.

Largely focusing on Matt (Ed Helms) and Anna (Patti Harrison), Together Together gives us a single parent/surrogate scenario with a curious premise. Matt, in his mid-40’s, has always wanted a child but has been unlucky in love. After a recent breakup, he believes the opportunity to fall in love and build a family with someone has passed him by.

As the movie opens, he is interviewing Anna, a young woman in her mid-20’s. The stilted, awkward discussion is equally intriguing and defining for what will come. Matt will hire Anna to carry his child and a partnership occurs, transactional at the beginning.

A film like this allows Helms to play the lovable, affable loner role expertly well. Harrison has more ground to cover. Inherently, Anna generates more scrutiny from a viewer’s standpoint. Why would a single, 20-something woman agree to be a surrogate for a mid-40’s single man? Obviously, consent among adults is no one’s business. Yet in the context of this story, our curiosity is nonetheless piqued. Beckwith knows this and finds a great balance in presenting Anna’s back story with Matt’s own journey on each sharing in such life-changing decisions.

Together Together looks and feels like the independent feature it is. Scaled down, Helms and Harrison carry much of the film and develop winning chemistry together. From a technical standpoint, the film is rather nondescript. Beckwith relies on close-ups and conventional cutting back-and-forth to guide us through a dialogue-heavy screenplay.

Where the film shines, and makes greater impact, is in the quieter, more intimate moments. The moments where Matt and Anna let their guards down and become vulnerable with one another. Even if Anna’s co-worker and best friend Jules (Julio Torres) lives to complain and fuss about everything in Anna’s life, he wants what is best for her and proves to be a constant support for her to not feel alone. She at least has him. Matt, seemingly has no one else.

And as a parade of recognizable, and admittedly underused, familiar faces dance through the film – Tig Notaro as a therapist, Nora Dunn and Fred Melamed as Matt’s parents, Anna Konkle from Hulu’s “PEN15,” among others – one may believe there are some missed opportunities to infuse their talents more into the film. However, Helms and Harrison are more than able to carry us through the three-trimester structure Beckwith has arranged.

Together Together is, almost despite itself, a warm and endearing modern-day love story. There may be a thread of cynicism woven into the story, and with these characters, but in the end Matt and Anna are two people who have struggled to find love and meaning within their own lives. Finding one another has changed them forever.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Patti Harrison, Ed Helms, Rosalind Chao, Tig Notaro, Julio Torres, Anna Konkle, Nora Dunn, Fred Melamed, Sufe Bradshaw, Evan Jonigkeit

Director: Nikole Beckwith
Written by: Nikole Beckwith
Release Date: April 23, 2021
Bleecker Street Media