It was recently reported that a professor of philosophy
at Texas A&M University, preparing to teach a course on “Contemporary Moral
Issues,” was instructed from above to “mitigate
your course content to remove the modules on race ideology and gender ideology,
and the Plato readings that may include these.” Perhaps the most fear-inducing aspect of those readings: a notion of humans as having originally consisted of three sexes, male and
female and a union of the two, the latter split in two for their transgressions
and now yearning to be reunited, a premise which accommodates (or ”explains”)
same- as well as opposite-sex attraction. Michael Shanks’ Together explicitly
cites that aspect of Plato as an input into its enjoyably gonzo premise, and
the film’s finale, indeed its very last shot, could be seen as representing its
realization, and thus as an embodiment of a red-state’s worst nightmare (or one
of them anyway). Reason alone then, to celebrate Shanks’ film, even if it weren’t
otherwise any good. Happily, it’s an enjoyable contrivance, surprisingly
straight-faced even at moments of maximum comic potential, especially given its two stars, Alison Brie and Dave Franco: they play
a romantically challenged couple that moves from the big city to a small town, incurring
injuries during a hiking accident, and thereafter experiencing an array of
physical and psychological trouble (Brie and Franco make the couple’s
sputtering chemistry all too believable, such that the uninformed viewer likely
wouldn’t remotely suspect that they’re married in real life). One’s heart momentarily
sinks when the movie attempts to place their travails in over-determined context,
citing an extinguished religious cult with an idiosyncratic approach to
marriage, and predictably revealing a congenial neighbour’s sinister side; overall
though, the film’s central dynamic, especially when boosted by those helpfully grim
real-world resonances, easily maintains one’s (possibly rather stunned)
interest.
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