Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Togetherness: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Full house.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 10, 2016

It’s hard not to take it personally, maybe even as a kind of weird message from beyond, when your name is featured prominently in the title of a film, but the fact that I up and left my parents’ domicile when I was 17, never to return (at least as a resident), may have taken a bit of the sting out of Jeff, Who Lives at Home’s moniker. That 2011 film written and directed by the Duplass Brothers, Jay (Transparent ) and Mark (The League: The Complete Season One, Zero Dark Thirty), followed the misadventures of its titular anti-hero, a slacker living in his mother’s basement who has a certain penchant for searching the Universe for meaningful Signs. (That particular tendency may in fact be endemic to the name of Jeff, for I and a lot of other Jeffs I’ve met through the years have had an interest in metaphysics and “hidden” meanings, as perhaps evidenced by my comment above that the very title of Jeff, Who Lives at Home struck me as at least potentially meaningful.) The quartet of characters that provides much of the focus of the Duplass’ new(ish) television series Togetherness are all searching for meaning in their own way, though in this case, all four of them are so often subsumed by the vagaries of everyday life that taking the time to figure out what it all means is an often elusive dream. Togetherness is at times kind of “inside baseball” (in a manner of speaking), nicely detailing the lives of the rank and file in Hollywood, but it finds some surprising emotional resonance in the various interrelationships it explores.

Brett Pierson (Mark Duplass) and his wife Michelle (Melanie Lynskey) are experiencing a certain phenomenon that many married couples do after the arrival of one or more kids—intimate relations becoming a rarer and rarer commodity. The first (of several) squirm inducing scenes in Togetherness sees Brett making an amorous play for the semi-sleeping Michelle, an advance she quickly rebuffs. Brett, not one to take this rejection lying down (so to speak), moves on to self gratification, something that disgusts Michelle. Obviously, all is not roses and sunshine in the Pierson household, but they are at least relatively financially stable due to Brett’s job as a foley artist (a neatly unusual touch and one that gives the series’ L.A. ambience a nicely authentic lived in feeling).

Not faring quite so well in the socioeconomic strata of Hollywood is struggling actor Alex Pappas (Steve Zissis, co-creator and writer of show along with the Dupass siblings). Alex has had a hard time making a go of it in the wild and wooly ways of the film and television industry, managing to only chalk up (no pun intended) a heartburn commercial, despite the fact that he was evidently the “golden boy” of the theater department back in his high school days with Brett, his best friend. When Alex finds himself summarily evicted from his apartment due to his inability to pay, Brett is there to rescue him, arriving with a U-Haul and begging his buddy not to give up on his dream. As a supposedly temporary stopgap, Brett offers Alex the use of the Piersons’ home as a hangout until Alex’s iffy prospects improve.

On the distaff side of the equation, Michelle’s older sister Tina (Amanda Peet) is experiencing problems in her (single) romantic life, including a smarmy putative boyfriend (Ken Marino, aping his womanizing character from In a World... to the point that I half expected him to swallow Peet’s nose during a kissing scene). When Tina is unceremoniously dumped, Alex (who’s there at the time) snaps out of his own funk to emotionally rescue her, and the scene would seem to be set for a “secondary” coupling as a foil to the married Pierson saga. (Commendably the show doesn't actually go that expected route.)

The Duplass Brothers are often (rightly or wrongly) stuffed into the so-called Mumblecore genre, and there is certainly an indie film quality to much of what transpires in Togetherness. The series tends to be rather melancholic quite a bit of the time, reflective of the transitions the four main characters are all going through, and therefore the show struggles at times to find a really substantial comedic element. Instead the humor tends to be lighter weight and at least occasionally based in squirm worthy moments like the ongoing sexual frustrations of the Piersons (Brett is not the only one given to self gratification, it turns out, and later episodes find the couple experimenting in some quasi-Fifty Shades of Grey territory). The depiction of the day to day lives of people at least tangentially (and/or hopefully) related to the film industry gives Togetherness a nice distinctive tenor, something that’s offset by the more universal issues the characters face. My hunch is the show will probably resonate best with audiences who are in the same general age demographic as the characters (meaning late 30s to early 40s), especially those who have come to the point of realizing that not all dreams come true and not every ending is necessarily a happy one.

Togetherness: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Togetherness is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. I wasn't able to find any authoritative technical data on the series online, but it certainly appears this was shot on film, and due to the sometimes rather coarse, even swarthy, grain field, I'm wondering if it perhaps was shot on Super 16. (With the accrual of digital tools which can add "grain" to high definition video, it's best not make any assumptions, however.) One way or the other, there's a nice depth and texture to the visuals, though there are some deficits in detail and especially shadow definition due to the series' tendency to have large swaths of virtually every episode play out in either very dimly lit or in many cases downright dark environments. The best moments for visual "pop" are when the series ventures out of doors during the bright daylight, as in an early visit to the beach (see screenshot 1). Other exterior sequences can be a bit more tamped down in terms of palette (see screenshot 6). The overall look of this presentation is often on the soft side, but encouragingly organic appearing. No issues with image instability or compression anomalies mar this solid presentation.

Togetherness: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Togetherness features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which gets the job done in terms of providing more than adequate support for dialogue, which is 99.9% of this series' sonic design. There are occasional nice moments of immersion, especially when things venture outside (including some neat sequences where Brett attempts to record various sounds for his job), but overall this is an intimate series which often takes place inside with dialogue scenes playing out between only two people at a time. As such, surround activity isn't overly compelling, but fidelity is strong and there are no problems of any kind to warrant concern.

Togetherness: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Inside the Episode (1080p; 11:46) includes brief overviews of each of the four episodes on this disc, with interviews and behind the scenes footage.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 4:15)

Disc Two

• Inside the Episode (1080p; 10:51) includes brief overviews of each of the four episodes on this disc, with interviews and behind the scenes footage.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2:47)


• Amanda and Steve (1080p; 5:02) features a pretty funny putative joint interview that sees Zissis riffing while Peet struggles to maintain her composure (which she repeatedly fails to do).

Togetherness: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's hard to describe a series like Togetherness, which often concerns itself with the minutiae of everyday life, as having ended with a "cliffhanger", but season one does get the characters to a place where invested viewers will most likely know what's going to happen next. The show may be too slight for some, especially since the characters often seem to be whining rather than proactively working to better their lives, but all four main performers are great, and supporting turns by such varied guest stars as Peter Gallagher and Mary Steenburgen add a little spice along the way. This show would seem to be perfect viewing for 30- and 40-something jaded show business types. That may be a relatively small demographic, but it's evidently large enough to have propelled the series to a second season. Technical merits are very good to excellent, and Togetherness comes Recommended.