Together

An estranged, unmarried British couple is forced to live together 24/7 with their son during the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown in their suburban London home. They never call each other by name, we only know the name of their son, Arthur (Samuel Logan). The film starts on March 24, 2020, the first day of national lockdown, after 422 people declared dead due to Coronavirus.

At the beginning, we basically just watch and listen to them talking about how they can’t stand each other and how they would have split up if they didn’t have a son. Before the lockdown, they both had to go to work, so they didn’t have to see each other for the entire day. He (James McAvoy) runs his own a digital marketing consulting company, she (Sharon Horgan) works with refugees for a charity called PFN.

On April 8, 2020, The news reporting that the Prime Minister has been admitted into intensive care with persistent symptoms of Coronavirus. The UK’s total Coronavirus death toll now stands at 7,097. The couple talk about her surprise birthday trip which he secretly arranged the mushroom picking in the New Forest many years ago when he got poisoned from eating a wrong kind of mushroom which may or may not have been an accident. That near-death experience somehow made them decide to give their relationship a try. And then Arthur was born, and everything has been changed for the worse.

The number UK deaths from Coronavirus accumulated to 30,265 by May 11, 2020. They receives a call from hospital which her mother is being treated after testing positive for Coronavirus, telling that only one of them is allowed to visit and say goodbye.

By December 2, 2020, UK has become the first country in Europe to approve the Pfizer vaccine. The spirit of Christmas brings some joy into the family. England’s national lockdown comes to an end, people can go outside, go to work, or go to restaurant if they want. Children can go back to school, although later some kids get COVID forcing the school to close temporarily.

669,105 British people are fully vaccinated by February 23, 2021, but the pandemic in the UK drags on with 121,305 deaths. The couple takes time to look back and she comes to the conclusion that her mother was killed because the government failed to act quickly. It is believed that if they put a lockdown one week earlier they could have save 20,000 lives.

At the end of February 2020, one month after the Care Provider Alliance contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for the guidance how to prepare themselves for the Coronavirus, they were told that they do not need to wear masks and it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected. But after Imperial College released a report which projected half a million people in the UK could die as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic if no action is taken. National Health Service (NHS) ministers ordered 15,000 hospital beds to be vacated, so they basically moved the patients out of the hospitals and put them in care homes, where the government believed Coronavirus patients could be safely cared for.

One year since the first lockdown, over 2.5 million people in the UK are fully vaccinated. Coronavirus death toll in the UK accumulated to 126,284.

The director and the writer use plenty of fourth-wall breaks, where the actors simply gaze their eyes on the camera and talk to us as if we were there with them, or on Zoom/Skype call during the lockdown. Everything happens on the ground floor, the camera is mostly locked in one place wherever they’re talking either in the kitchen or the living room with different angles. Sometimes the camera just lingers, tracking focus between two subjects, or just there observing the situation like they forget that someone is watching.

The chemistry between James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan is undeniable. Their performances compliment one another especially in the scene where they naturally interrupt and talk over each other in a continuous shot with long dialogue (written by Dennis Kelly) which sometimes unexpectedly shifting mood from friendly argument to hostile conservation in a matter of seconds. The characters’ development through their experiences and emotions they pour in, keep staggering as the time goes by toward the end of a year in lockdown. It’s weird, it’s comical, it’s heart-wrenching. And it gives us hope that we also can get through this, together.

Together was first broadcast in the U.K. on BBC Two on June 17, 2021, and later available on BBC iPlayer for 365 days. The film was theatrically released the U.S. on August 27, 2021, and was released as Video On Demand on September 14, 2021.