It Ends With Us (Justin Baldoni, 2024)
Blake Lively is probably the best reason to go and see It Ends With Us, a romantic drama by co-star and director Justin Baldoni that tries to blend entertainment and domestic violence.
The Gossip Girl-star is in terrific form here. She plays Lily Bloom, who in a clear case of Nomen Est Omen opens a flowershop in Boston not too long after her father’s death.
Het father Andrew (Kevin McKidd) was a problematic person, who abused her mother Jenny (Amy Morton) and Lily has sworn this will never happen to her.
After the funeral she first meets handsome neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni) in what is perhaps the best scene of the entire movie. It takes place on a rooftop and contains lots of witty dialogue, with both actors at their charming best.
Lily and Ryle are bound to fall in love and so they do. But after a while their relationship becomes more problematic, especially after Lily reconnects with an old friend, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), and Ryle becomes more and more jealous and intense.
It does feel like the stuff of romance novels so it is no surprise that it is based on one, written by Colleen Hoover, and adapted by Chrissy Hall. Thanks to online enthusiasm, it became incredibly successful too.
I guess one of the reasons it clicked with audiences is that it is personal. Hoover wrote the book with her own mother in mind, who suffered from domestic violence and was afraid to leave her father (even though she eventually did).
That element lends a certain truthfulness to the story that absolutely works in its favor. On the other hand, the story is full of contrivances and you don’t have to be a genius to understand well in advance how things are bound to work out.
Lively and Baldoni (who does double duty as the movie’s director) do the best they can with sometimes pretty average material. They both know how to act with their eyes: she looks like she will always be afraid of him, while he convincingly shows his dark side long before we find out what’s the matter with him.
As restaurant owner Atlas, Brandon Sklenar is a more rugged, grounded character, while Jenny Slate is super fine as Lily’s best friend Allysa and Hasan Minhaj brings just the right amount of goofiness to his role as Alyssa’s boyfriend Marshall.
It Ends With Us is the kind of adult drama, that is more commercial than prestige. It aims to please and not disturb (too much), despite its serious subject matter.
The onscreen violence is kept to a relative minimum, but is does have an impact. Still, it is also clear that Lily will not become like her mother and accept her fate. In fact, it is Ryle who will have to accept his, if he wants to stay in the picture.
Baldoni drapes the movie in lush visuals, which tend to accentuate the beauty of, well, Lively and himself. And yes, they both look really good, but that approach also makes It Ends With Us look like a date movie, even when it’s really not.
And in the final stretch It Ends With Us almost feels like a YouTube-instruction movie: how to… get out of a bad relationship?
I’m not sure that’s how things work out in real life, at least not most of the time, but even when the story gets messy, the movie defiantly refuses to follow suit and chooses to emphasize female empowerment over victimhood.
I give it three stars.
Note: It Ends With Us is released in most of the world this week, with other territories to follow in the coming weeks.