Ed Helms and Patti Harrison Fall Platonically in Love in ‘Together Together’

Movies have imparted a lot of lessons about love over the years—that opposites attract, that you have to let go of the ones you love, that it’s all around us, actually, and so on. But few have delved into the particular brand of bittersweet loneliness that comes with a kind of relationship no one else seems to understand.

That’s the kind of relationship that Ed Helms and Patti Harrison find themselves in, in Together Together, a comedy that is now available to rent on-demand after premiering virtually at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, and a short theatrical run in April. Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith, Together Together tells the story of Matt (Helms) a middle-aged divorced man who wants to be a father, and Anna (Harrison) the 26-year-old barista who has agreed to be his surrogate.

While the financial terms of this surrogacy are finalized via contract, the social boundaries of this contrived connection are far murkier. It starts with an awkward dinner. Right away, Matt is too eager, while Anna is closed-off. Anna wants to live her life as normal until she delivers the baby; Matt wants to show up at her workplace with tea and comfy clogs. Anna doesn’t want to tell anyone about the pregnancy; Matt wants to have a baby shower.
Sometimes Matt’s hands-on attitude veers into the realm of a controlling one—like when he insists Anna eat a salad instead of potatoes, or when he bristles at the idea of her having sex while pregnant. But an empathetic performance from Helms and a nuanced script from Beckwith help you understand where Matt is coming from.
“Why are you doing this alone?” Anna asks at one point.

“Because I am alone,” Matt replies simply.
It’s a matter-of-fact statement. It’s not meant to break your heart. Sometimes people end up alone. In Matt’s case, his marriage didn’t work out for undisclosed reasons. All of his friends already have kids of their own, and, in a brilliant scene where they ignore Matt’s toast to put out various kid-related fires, you immediately understand why he’s turned to surrogacy.

Matt’s loneliness isn’t a tragedy; it’s a reality that he’s addressing the best way he knows how. The fact that no one seems to understand why he might find meaning in a relationship outside of a romantic one? Well, that is a little bit of tragedy. But despite what the outside world may think, by the end of the film, both he and Anna know what they have is real and valid.

There aren’t as many jokes in Together Together as you might expect, given that the two leads are known for their comedy. (I laugh just thinking about Harrison’s Santa Claus sketch in Netflix’s I Think You Should Leave.) But the scenes with Julio Torres as Harrison’s coworker and Anna Konkle as a birthing class instructor go a long way in picking up the comedic slack, and perhaps it’s less that Together Together isn’t the comedy you’re expecting, and more that it’s not the movie you’re expecting, period.

There isn’t a playbook for movies about platonic love, especially platonic love between a man and a woman. Even When Harry Met Sally—a movie whose “Can men and women be friends?” thesis was originally meant to end with the main couple not getting together—embraces romance in the end. It just makes it all the more impressive that Together Together is forging its own path.

Just like Matt and Anna’s relationship, this is a movie that feels uncertain. It’s a genre that’s still testing its legs. But by the time you get to the two characters’ sweetly sincere confessions of love—sans any romantic or sexual implications—you’ll know for sure it’s something special, despite fumbles along the way.

Where to watch Together Together