| With any movie based on a popular novel, there are always going to be two very separate camps: those who compare it to the novel they know and loved, and those who never read the novel. I am in the latter camp. Normally I would be in the target audience for this movie but considering I had not heard of author Colleen Hoover prior to this release, I am in a weird in between place where I am neither the target audience and yet also the type of person most likely to enjoy and get something out of this romantic drama. | | 2024
Directed by: Justin Baldoni
Screenplay by: Christy Hall, Colleen Hoover
Starring: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni
|
Most viewers will already be aware that it’s about domestic violence, especially given the title for those who hadn’t read the book. A romantic drama with serious undertones and something important to say and do so in the confines of a wide release, mainstream, romance movie. Those are some incredibly difficult balancing acts it needs to pull off, and it mostly succeeds.
It opens with Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) returning to her small hometown along the picturesque eastern seaboard in Maine. It’s her father’s funeral but she doesn’t have anything nice to say. He was a popular man who beat up her mother more times than she can count. She has a frustrating relationship with her mother because she stayed and never left the man abusing her.
Adult Lily is trying to forge her own path. She’s opening up her own flower store in Boston, meets a new friend, and has stayed single for years. But Ryle (Justin Baldoni) a handsome stranger and brother of her new best friend complicates things. She doesn’t pay attention to his temper at first, just that he’s hot, a literal neurosurgeon, and madly in love with her.
Lily is Blake Lively. Lively, the producer and star of this movie, does not like it when people confuse her with her characters. But Lily Bloom has exactly two main traits which so happen to be Blake Lively’s main traits: her sex appeal and her independence. The romance half of the romantic drama stem from Blake’s volumous strawberry blonde waves which are almost more eye-catching than her cut-out dresses.
My favourite parts of the movie, however, do not stem from the romance, but rather how the story is told. Lily’s teenage life is told in bits and pieces as the years go by in her adult life, in each early scene there are little nuggets dropped that become very crucial to the decisions she has to make later on. The highlight of the story is that Ryle is not a clear-cut villain, but he shows how past trauma can rear its ugly head as temper and abuse later on. The confidence in his sensitivity that Justin Baldoni must have to pick this story to produce and direct and to pick that character to star as is impressive. He could have cast himself as the hero, but he did not.
The flower shop itself and the attempts to incorporate comedy mess up this otherwise straightforward and delicate drama. Comedian Jenny Slate stars as Allysa, Lily’s new best friend and sister of Ryle, she provides a quip at every opportunity and although her character has one crucial scene (to provide the story of Ryle’s past), it’s clear that she’s really just here because otherwise the movie is too heavy and needs lighter moments to be able to sell box office tickets.
And now the weirdest part of the movie: the flower shop. Alyssa says she doesn’t like flowers because they’re dying when you receive them (or give them) and then they die and are more work after they die. I can understand that. Lily counters with that’s why she likes them, and begins to explain in a very long-winded way about finding the beauty in fleeting moments and how death is not temporary but flowers are. Her flower shop is thus this eerie, very darkly lit, confined space filled with old antique furniture and flowers representing death; including one bouquet (if you call it that) of wilted, dirty white flowers in blood red water. I have a hard time believing there are enough people wanting to buy flowers from a shop like that to keep her in business. There is then a later scene where she returns from doing the flowers at a wedding. That’s where I draw the line, nobody is hiring her to do flowers for wedding, unless the theme is death, but not many weddings do, probably statistically close to zero.
There are a lot of people wanting to make comparisons to both Anyone But You and Challengers, primarily because they represent female-led movies that had box office successes. Which highlights how under-served this audience is, because these are completely different movies. If you want to compare Anyone But You, then I can say the costume designer for It Ends with Us is superior, Blake Lively’s clothes fit her perfectly. Challengers has a similarly toxic relationship and at least with It Ends with Us it is also received that way.
It Ends with Us is poised to have a strong box office run, and it deserves it. The movie has something to say and for the most part, says it well.
|
