Loosely led by the kind-natured Göran, who will do anything to avoid a conflict, the group spend their time arguing about left-wing politics and other more practical issues, such as whether doing the dishes is bourgeois.

The sharehome's dynamics are significantly shaken when Göran's sister, Elisabeth, leaves her violent husband Rolf and moves in, bringing her two children Eva and Stefan.

Eva meanwhile befriends a lonely boy across the street named Fredrik; his family appears conventional on the surface but proves to be even more dysfunctional than the commune of which they so openly disapprove.

The children are portrayed as sidelined by everyone in the film, from the new school where they are bullied to the parents who, while genuinely loving, are too busy experimenting with their own freedom to show it.

Elisabeth's husband Rolf makes a concerted effort to clean up his act, although not before getting drunk and arrested, leaving his children stranded on a roadside after a disastrous meal in a Chinese restaurant.

[5] The New York Times called Together "A funny, graceful and immensely good-natured work",[6] while Salon described it as "The kind of picture that makes you feel that there are many good reasons to actually like mankind.