By Lake DiStefano
Arts & Entertainment Editor
If you are even remotely aware of the happenings in pop culture, you’ve likely heard of Hollywood’s newest alleged feud and, of course, the film behind it: “It Ends with Us.” This tension is mostly in regard to accusations of creative differences between director Justin Baldoni and producer Blake Lively, who just so happened to play the two leads in the film.
Despite all the controversy, at the center lies the film itself, which hasn’t received much attention in light of all the scandal surrounding its inception. It seems that, at least in terms of conversation around the film, most of the discussion is focused on typical celebrity drama, with most of social media debating which of the two leads is most wrong in the apparent feud.
This is less interesting to me than the film itself, however. The film is an adaptation of the book by the same name, written by equally controversial industry titan Colleen Hoover.
Despite the sheer numbers that her books do, Hoover has remained an often maligned figure in the world of literature, as her style of writing is often most simply described as low-brow, spicy romance – a genre not really respected in the wider world of writing, given that its primary demographic is often teenage girls.
Regardless, this is often regarded as Hoover’s most known work as it attempts to actually tackle the unhealthy and abusive relationships her books are so often rooted in, with a serious attitude and realistic tone. The end result is “It Ends with Us,” a novel — and now movie — that is definitively and sternly about domestic violence.
Feedback on the book is often negative, with many pointing out that the cheesy quirks of her writing do little to serve the message. The most common example is the main character, who is named Lily Blossom Bloom and, you guessed it, works in a flower shop.
These goofy details are perfectly at home in her other books, but in one that takes itself so seriously, it merely makes the whole ordeal seem like a poor interpretation and representation of the real world trauma these relationships can, and do, cause.
This is all to say that upon seeing the movie, I was pleasantly surprised that some things were actually improved upon from the book. Due to it being a movie, whatever weakness was present in Hoover’s prose simply doesn’t make it into the film, allowing for specific scenes to hit harder. The immediate example coming to mind is the flashback scenes with Lily’s first love, Atlas.
In a similar vein, due to the constriction of the runtime, the writers were forced to actually reduce the film to only its essential parts. Such as leaving many of the boring love triangle moments at the wayside, as well as the poorly-aged letters-to-Ellen-DeGeneres subplot — which was such a bizarre detail in the original book I can only believe it must have been a product of it being a concession for queer representation not present elsewhere in the book.
Visually speaking, the film is surprisingly well constructed. The shots, while not always particularly innovative, are at the very least visually appealing. Some do wonders to highlight the theme of generational trauma in the film via flashbacks of Lily’s father’s abuse rapidly cutting into present day moments.
This is where the improvements end, however, because underneath the gloss and sheen of a big budget Hollywood production, this is still a movie based upon an incredibly sensitive topic using an arguably tone deaf book as its source material.
The film has an unfortunate obsession with desperately needing to give reasons as to why the abuse happens. This nearly ruins the film for me. Not only does it inject an unneeded nuance into a situation that is already difficult to navigate, but it also takes time away from the story of surviving abuse that this film claims it is trying to portray.
The soundtrack of the film is also incredibly uneven, with the many contemporary hits sprinkled throughout, often drawing attention away from dark scenes and undermining them tonally.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the film is the overreliance on the love triangle. This is especially awful when, at the end of the film, instead of ending on a shot of Lily driving off from her abusive marriage, it opts to end only when Lily finally reconnects and rekindles her flames with Atlas. This effectively draws focus away from the power in her leaving and instead makes her happy ending solely about finding love.
It is as if the film cannot comprehend the idea of focusing completely on the story of Lily’s survival. It can’t help itself but let the love triangle dominate the plot, and reduce the film to simply a love story but with extra steps, instead of a powerful story about surviving abuse.
At the end of the day, despite what I assume are noble intentions from the cast and crew, this is a portrayal of abuse that is bogged down and muddied by the circumstances of its inception. The film suffers from a few problems that have carried over from the book, and the general issues of trying to adapt such a serious topic for the big screen.
