Dresden, GERMANY – “What would you say if your daughter came to you one day and told you that her boyfriend hit her and pushed her down the stairs, but he said it was an accident? And then she tells you that he tried to rape her, but he swears he’ll never do it again?”
The adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s book It Ends With Us, which was heavily hyped on TikTok, is now out in cinemas, and despite the rom-com advertising, it surprises with its very tough content: domestic violence.
The film is about florist Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni) and enters into a relationship with him – but the initially seemingly perfect relationship slowly falls apart due to Ryle’s violent behavior. And then there is Lily’s childhood sweetheart Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), whom Lily meets again – and who wants to save her from her relationship.
The focus is primarily on Lily’s way of breaking out of this violent relationship characterized by domestic violence and leaving Ryle.
So while the movie does have elements of a romance, the underlying theme is a lot more serious than the very light advertising and description of the movie suggests. This runs the risk of the sometimes very impactful scenes upsetting unknowing survivors viewing the movie.
But at the same time, the superficiality of the movie misses an opportunity to thoroughly educate the posh young female audience about an issue that will affect one in three of them in the future: domestic violence.
Lively’s publicity on her press tour includes statements like “Grab your florals and go watch the movie with your friends.” Its Instagram-worthy images and lack of commentary about survivors of domestic violence gives the not entirely unwarranted impression of romanticizing the film and its serious subject matter. It even goes so far as to use the film to promote the alcohol brand she owns.
This advertising is more than just tasteless with a kind of bitter irony because alcohol has been proven to promote violence in partnerships by lowering inhibitions. A 2022 German study showed that alcohol is involved in half of all cases of domestic violence.
The difference is made by Lively’s costar, director and producer Justin Baldoni through his constant collaboration with and support for the anti-domestic violence NGO No More.
In constant interviews, Baldoni strives to educate about the situation of the women affected.
Despite these attempts to address the serious topic, even Baldoni’s behavior cannot change the low quality of a film with so much potential.
The lead roles in particular are more than just poorly cast, with Lively as Lily in particular just not seeming to fit in terms of age, but also her acting.
While Lively excellently plays characters like Serena from the series “Gossip Girl,” her style doesn’t fit at all with the rather insecure Lily, who also seems to fit with her history of domestic violence experienced as a child.
Lily seems to be constantly laughing. It’s the only emotion that she can convey at least halfway authentically. The depth of Lily’s emotions and turmoil are not well served by the flat, implausible and strange dialog, even without Lively’s acting ability.
Baldoni is also not an ideal fit for the role of Ryle, as a much older actor would have been better suited to present the unequal power relations between Lily and Ryle. In contrast to his costar, however, his acting performance was quite convincing, despite poor dialog such as in the roof terrace scene, in order to portray Ryle’s complex character.
But even the best acting performance couldn’t get anything out of the flat script – the movie almost rushed through the plot and thus, despite its length of over two hours, had no time to tell the real love story of Ryle and Lily – nor to show Lily’s problem of leaving this relationship.
The relationship doesn’t seem to build, Ryle and Lily see each other for the first time, Lily laughs at him and Ryle seems to propose to her a few days later, and the exit from the relationship is also far from reality.
Atlas appears like a knight in shining armor, helping her out of the relationship. Lily leaves the apartment and simply doesn’t return. Through Lily’s privilege, the movie in no way reflects the underlying complexity of possible children together, financial, social and emotional dependency.
In no way is a real struggle on Lily’s part portrayed, nor any terror of the abandoned ex-partner Ryle. This trivialization is especially dangerous because the film paints a completely false picture of abandonment and could even begin to blame the victim for her return instead of the perpetrator.
And as if this missed opportunity for complexity wasn’t enough, the film’s cinematography doesn’t seem convincing, either.
At times, the set design makes it difficult for the viewer to concentrate on the person rather than the background. The soundtrack seems like randomly selected radio music that doesn’t seem to fit the general mood of the movie. Even if Taylor Swift’s song “my tears ricochet” was probably the most atmospheric, other songs would have fit much better.
It Ends With Us is not worth recommending and gives the impression that it was made less about its content and more about its photos and possible Instagram and marketing images.
And while the movie wonderfully epitomizes how surprising domestic violence can be and deliberately doesn’t mention it in its description, forewarnings beforehand were much needed – as would a little restraint with advertising on the press tour.
Lina Marie Schulenkorf is a Senior Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
