Together Together (2021)
- Reviewed from the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Nikole Beckwith’s comedy doesn’t attempt to reckon with the more complex questions surrogacy may raise, but it’s a pleasant affair nonetheless.
Matt (Ed Helms), a single, 40-something app designer, and 26-year-old barista Anna (Patti Harrison), who becomes his surrogate, forge a sweet, wholesome connection despite the initial awkwardness of their circumstances.
It turns out both of them are lonelier than they readily admit. After her pregnancy as a teen Anna breaks with her disapproving family, and Matt all but confesses that he thinks a baby will resolve his loneliness after a long-term relationship has ended.
Harrison emerges as the film’s star, and although Helms is given little in the way of character dimension he fares as well as can be expected. It’s not especially layered, and some dialogue seems lifted straight from Twitter (e.g. a conversation about age gaps and Woody Allen), but the film more than succeeds as a heartfelt portrait of an unlikely friendship.