'Together Together' in the Loneliest Generation

I'm starting to think that Millennials are the loneliest generation. Born on the cusp of technological breakthroughs that granted them the power to connect to the world on demand, and yet still familiar enough with an offline world that they recognize all of the pitfalls that come with always being ‘online.’ There’s this deep desire to be seen at the root of this generation, an addiction cultivated by the video-gaming of basic social interactions. It’s a drive that makes Millennials feel all at once able to accomplish anything they set their minds to and yet, when confronted by an indifferent society that acts counter to the rosy social media world they grew up in, they’re left feeling utterly unsupported and isolated.

In a way, that same struggle between technology and nature is on display in Nikole Beckwith's Together Together (2021), a platonic-romantic comedy starring Patti Harrison and Ed Helms. For what amounts to a slightly convoluted story about a non-traditional surrogate pregnancy, the film is surprisingly meditative – honing in on social pressures, generational struggles and the inherent loneliness of navigating both. Its pointed focus on character instead of plot or gags breathes new, more subtle life into what could have easily been yet another brash comedy based in tired gendered cliches.

We first meet Anna (Patti Harrison) as she's being interviewed by Matt (Ed Helms) in what feels like a bizarre blind date. In actuality, it’s a job interview for a surrogate. In a move thats typically reserved for women of a certain age in movies, Matt is a single, middle-aged man, and he's tired of waiting for The One. He has the money, resources and stability, he just doesn’t have a partner – so why wait? For Anna, the venture towards become a surrogate is purely for economic reasons. Anna's already once had a child she gave up for adoption as a teenager, so feels she at least understands the process and figures why not, it’s more money than she’ll make as a coffee barista and at least this time it wouldn’t actually be her kid.

Eventually we learn that Anna’s relationship with her parents has been strained ever since her initial teen pregnancy. This venture into surrogacy seems to be an unconscious recreation of that experience on some level; allowing herself just enough emotional distance to feel like this is something that is happening to her but not about her. Patti Harrison, who I've previously enjoyed in her more over the top to delightfully unhinged comedy roles, perfectly embodies that mix of placid coasting and underlying anxiety that plagues most Millennials. It's the type of hesitancy that gets mistaken for selfishness, or perhaps even a lack of substance, because she wears it so openly on her sleeve.

Matt, meanwhile, is the sort of lost soul that has finally figured out how to harness his sadness and rework it into joy. Unlike Anna, he no longer has a fear of solitude, for him it's just a matter of forging his own way – he’s old enough to know what he wants and what he doesn't. To Ed Helms’ credit, Matt walks the line between sweet and just neurotic enough for you to understand why his last relationship likely didn't work out. His paternal need to micromanage the gestational process quickly spirals into a desire to control what Anna does with her body to an unreasonable degree. He starts to show up at her job unannounced, pregnancy tea in hand, with all sorts of gifts and advice to Anna’s embarrassment. It reaches a fever pitch when he shows up at her apartment door in time to see a one night stand leaving. Flustered and annoyed, Anna finds herself having to explain both personal boundaries and basic biology to Matt after he freaks out about the idea of "a penis so close to my baby.”

Anna didn’t count on the intense levels of forced intimacy in what she had expected to be more of a business transaction. While Matt's obsessiveness is unbecoming, his reactions are still understandable – where his friends and family seem to think he’s given up on his romantic prospects too quick, the truth is he’s just thrilled at the prospect of becoming a new dad. It’s his excitement that eventually causes friction between the two, as Anna’s boundaries are repeatedly, albeit good-naturedly, trampled all over. Besides dealing with Matt's desperate need to live vicariously through her bodily experiences, she also stumbles upon the classic Female Anxiety trope of realizing just how dehumanizing pregnancy can be. In removing that parental ownership to the baby, you simply become a vessel in the eyes of not only the child’s parents, but their friends, the doctors and every stranger around you. Matt and Anna realize the only way through this weirdly intimate transaction is to just take it as it comes, eventually working together to build a mutual understanding and gain appreciation for each other’s experience.

The heart of Together Together is rooted in generational anxieties – while Matt has the perfect suburban home and steady employment, he is wrestling with the pressure of not having a family of his own at his age. It wasn’t for lacking of trying, just nothing seemed to work out for him with any decisiveness; his previous relationship having slowly melted away in a sea of discarded candy wrappers and handholding. He's feeling lonelier than ever at an age where friends are too busy with their own lives and families – he feels like the world is moving on without him. He's not "old," whatever that means anymore in these days of surrogacy and second acts, but he feels too old to accept this lonely lot in life laying down. His decision to have a child is a breakthrough for him, an active step towards his own happiness. It’s the waking up of a wallflower Gen X-er, evolving from disaffected to doer as he breaks the Boomer mold.

Anna, as a millennial, is just struggling. She’s struggling monetarily, she’s struggling mentally, and she’s struggling to find a direction in life. It's a credit to writer / director Beckwith to portray this omnipresent anxiety as surrogacy; burdening yourself with the hopes of an elder generation in the pursuit of monetary stability and instead just receiving the trauma of realizing you sold yourself for nine months to what amounts to a lot of bullying and just a little bit more than minimum wage – or at bare minimum, taking on a non-sustainable lifestyle in exchange for a brief momentary reprieve. As the movie goes on, it becomes clear that Anna is using this surrogacy experience as a sort of a gestalt therapy gone awry. The final shot of the film is purposefully left ambiguous in its ratio of pain to relief; just how much she will actually come to terms with, pun acknowledged but not intended, remains uncertain.

Then there’s whatever is happening between Matt and Anna. Decidedly non-sexual. On one hand the concept of a platonic-romantic comedy itself seems to fall into a certain Millennial niche of depression-minded fear, as if to warn that indulging ourselves too far will cause only regret later. But it’s also refreshing as hell to see a male / female dynamic on screen that’s genuinely loving without being consummated. Together Together offers a richly humanistic take on the power of friendship – once Matt and Anna accept the fact that the only people who truly have their backs is themselves, they both free up the capacity to give, even if it’s only for a finite amount of time. For Matt, this bond puts him on the road to becoming a better man for his unborn child. For Anna, it offers a new road out of self hatred and shame, the idea that your support system does not need to come from outside of yourself.

Now more than ever we can choose to do things alone. Watching movies at home, working from home, online shopping, restaurant delivery, groceries delivery, phone-a-doctor; you name it, we no longer need to leave the couch to do it. But having a baby is an inherently social activity, it takes two to tango and sometimes three to conceive (or more if you count all the doctors and nurses). Together Together reminds us that, while we have the abilities to do these things alone through technological advancements, there’s really no replacement for old fashioned direct human interaction. It’s not only sometimes necessary, but largely worth it to suffer the inconveniences of life, from minor to major, in order to achieve those small moments of mental or spiritual awakenings within ourselves, together.