It Ends With Us (2024) movie
3 min read
For those who are unaware, “It Ends with Us” is the movie adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel. It is brought to the screen in an attempt to cash in on the success of the book. However, the screenwriters and casting took some.. liberties.. with the material to bring what many a critic are saying is a low rate somewhat insulting story.
The movie follows Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) as she moves to Boston to open her dream flower shop, fittingly named Lily Bloom’s. Along the way, she meets the charming and broody neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni). Lily and Ryle have what appears to be a perfect relationship, but once they are married, Ryle’s darker side comes out.
We see scenes from a single angle that of the denier, to start and this leads the audience into what they are to believe is the side of the sufferer. Only towards the end does the movie show the horrific reality of the assaults. We follow Lilly as she remembers her happier times, her first time, her first love and loss and how she is now falling for this surgeon to have what she thinks is the happy life. Only into the film do we see that this is a pattern for the family, her father abusing her mother for years before his passing. There is a evil undertone to this piece that they do an adequate job of covering.
It is after a particularly horrid encounter with her husband that Lilly makes the decision to leave, shortly after discovering that she’s pregnant,
Lily must decide whether to leave or stay. Let’s also throw in the fact that her first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), also lives in Boston and is still in love with her, and Lily is probably in love with him, too. The movie ends with the line from the title, in what has to be one of the corniest pieces there is, a moment that should have harrowing impact making the audience cringe.
The movie and the book attempt to address a subject that is harrowing for anyone that has ever had to experience it in a “PG13” kind of way as the saying goes, only skirting the subject not facing it head on. Only at the end does she open up about the issues to friends who offer nothing but support and help. She must leave, asking the husband what would he tell their daughter,
So, the material is serious, the execution though, well to say the least it seems half hearted, in the novels, Lily is a 25 year old redhead, just setting out, Lively is.. erm… not 25 nor redhead. It appears to the casual observer she got the role to put out a project at the same time as her husband puts out deadpool.
The screenplay of the book also isn’t the best, the feel of the pace and the scenes seem to the casual observer to be the possible output of an AI bot fed the book and told to, do the best you can. Some of the scenes are block almost amateur, the delivery seeming insincere to the point of insulting.
The material that the book covers has serious repercussions, it affects so many people in so many ways, to be boiled down to a 2 hour movie as a romantic drama just seems wrong, give the book a go, give the movie a miss.
2/5
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