Review: 'Together Together' a charming look at friendship, pregnancy

Nikole Beckwith's "Together Together" is an indie charmer that explores fatherhood, friendship and non-romantic love from a quirky, outside point of view.

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison are wonderfully cast as a father and a surrogate mother who are not quite sure what the boundaries of their relationship during the course of the pregnancy should be. They feel their way through it on the fly, together. 

Helms plays Matt, a 45-year-old Gen-Xer who wants to start a family on his own. He's particular, slightly nerdy and just a bit awkward in that Ed Helms kind-of-way. 

Harrison ("I Think You Should Leave") is Anna, a 26-year-old Millennial who previously had a child and gave it up for adoption and sees the opportunity to carry Matt's baby as transactional, with a $15,000 windfall attached. But over the course of the pregnancy, they become close friends — they even watch "Friends," which Anna has never seen — which leads to the sort of complications that come along with friendship. 

The Hollywood version of this story has them falling in love, but writer-director Beckwith avoids those trappings and clichés while diving into the intimacy of their connection in other ways. They go to therapy sessions (Tig Notaro plays their therapist), he oversteps his bounds by being overbearing in her personal life and she comes to his baby shower and is hurt by the way she's treated. It's a thorny, complicated situation, and Beckwith handles it delicately.    

And she handles it with grace. "Together Together" is a sweet film about connection that leaves some large questions unanswered and open-ended. That's OK though, because you get the picture the characters are still figuring things out, too.  

'Together Together'

GRADE: B

Rated R: R for some sexual references and language

Running time: 90 minutes

In theaters

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama