The movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel “It Ends With Us” is a disappointment falling short of its potential. The movie was mediocre at best as the writers made many questionable decisions in addressing the central problem of the movie: domestic violence. The film struggles to give enough weight to the topic of domestic abuse and — paired with the multiple off-set controversies and drama involving the cast — the movie’s core message feels lost, weakening the intended lesson.
The film follows protagonist Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), who struggles with her love life while mourning her father’s death. There are continuous switches between her childhood, introducing her first love Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar) and revealing her father’s abusive tendencies toward her mother, and the present, where she falls in love with Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni), a man who ends up having the same abusive tendencies as her father toward her.
Some casting choices don’t seem to fit. For instance, comedian Hasan Minhaj, who plays Marshall, the husband of Lily’s best friend Alyssa Kincaid (Jenny Slate), feels out of place in a movie about abuse. His comedic background doesn’t make sense for a serious film, undermining the film’s gravity.
In addition, the movie omits many scenes from the book, including important parts of Lily’s backstory and her relationships with her father.
Most of the graphic domestic abuse scenes are preserved. Nevertheless, the producers introduce a questionable twist — many of Ryle’s abusive incidents are portrayed as possibly being accidental, only revealing his abusive nature at the end of the movie. In contrast, the book depicts his abuse as intentional from the start.
Although this change provides a more surprising plot twist, it still diminishes the story’s realism, reinforces the film’s excessive dramatization, and means the film lacks the weight needed to accurately depict domestic abuse.
In the movie, Baldoni acts phenomenally, seamlessly transforming into a complex villain and bringing depth to the role necessary to the plot. In contrast, Lily should have much more depth and emotion, but Lively is unable to bring that to the screen. In the big, emotional scenes, her acting falls flat, and she doesn’t capture the mix of strength and vulnerability that makes Lily such a powerful character in the book. Overall, her performance isn’t what fans were hoping for and makes it hard for us to connect with Lily’s story.
Aside from Baldoni and Lively’s drastically different levels of acting, another huge difference is their dedication to spreading the film’s main message.
“If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available,” Baldoni’s Instagram bio reads, also tagging and linking No More, a non-profit organization with the mission to end domestic violence, sexual assault, and abuse. He also posted recorded conversations with members of the organization and other podcasts where he continues to spread awareness of domestic abuse.
Conversely, Lively’s Instagram bio currently includes tags and links to her beverage lines, but nothing abuse-related is in it.
In addition, her attitude toward promoting the film in other parts of her social media presence isn’t as serious as needed for a topic of this serious nature.
“Grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it!” Lively exclaimed in a TikTok promotion posted on Aug. 6 regarding the film’s release.
Lively’s excitement and exclusion of anything abuse-related in this video seem to promote the movie as a romantic comedy instead of treating it with sensitivity, as Baldoni does.
Sibongile Mafu, a video creator on TikTok, agrees. One of her videos, captioned “If movies with heavy themes were marketed as It Ends With Us,” mocks Lively’s insensitive promotion of the movie. For example, Mafu jokingly told audiences to, “wear your thorn crown and Jesus sandals” to see “The Passion of the Christ.”
While Mafu’s videos are meant to be joking and sarcastic, if this insensitive behavior continues, future movies will not be viewed with understanding and maturity. We hope mature themes will be handled with more care and attention in the coming years.