It Ends with Us movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert (2024)

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It Ends with Us movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert (1)

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"What would you say if your daughter told you her boyfriend pushed her down the stairs but it's okay because really it was just an accident?" Questions like this are at the heart of "It Ends with Us,” based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover. This is a message picture about what it takes to break the vicious cycle of domestic violence. It is not subtle.

After the emotional turmoil of her estranged father's funeral in Maine, our heroine, the impeccably fashionable Lily Bloom (Blake Lively, the best clotheshorse movie star since Kay Francis), breaks into a rooftop to peer at the vast beauty of Boston's skyline. Before she can do much introspection, she meets the impossibly handsome and impossibly named Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, also the film's director), a neurosurgeon (naturally). Baldoni comes barreling into the scene like a hurricane, hurling a pair of steel chairs across the rooftop in anger. Instead of repulsion from this violent act, Lily finds herself intrigued and drawn to his charm and megawatt smile. Their playful patter, peppered with barbs veiled as flirtation from Ryle, ramps up until the dashing surgeon is summoned back to the hospital by his beeper.

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This is of course not the last we see of Ryle. He just happens to be the brother of Allysa (Jenny Slate), the quirky rich and bored housewife Lily hires to help her run the Cottagecore florist shop of her dreams. Although Lily repeatedly insists that she just wants to be friends, Ryle pursues her, ignoring her many pleas just as flagrantly as she ignores all his red flags. Lust is a hell of a drug.

Quickly, Ryle's negs and flirtatious barbs ramp up, transforming into toxic jealousy and other forms of obsessive behavior. This includes inviting himself to dinner with her mother by dropping the L-word for the first time, one of several such instances of emotional manipulation he brandishes like a silver-tipped dagger. Before she knows it, Lily is not only in a relationship she didn't really want, she herself becomes an outlet for Ryle's raging temper.

The early scenes of Lily and Ryle's volatile courtship are interwoven with scenes in which teenage Lily (Isabela Ferrer) falls in love for the first time with a schoolmate named Atlas (Alex Neustaedter). The soulful boy is squatting in the abandoned house across the street from hers, fleeing his mother’s abusive boyfriend. The generous and nonjudgmental Lily offers both aid and friendship when Atlas needs it the most. He in turn offers her a caring shoulder and a safe place to finally express the fear she feels as she watches her father physically abuse her own mother over and over again.

These scenes are innocent and tender, the two young actors imbuing the teenagers with just the right balance of world weariness from the violence they’ve already endured and the irrepressible hope that comes with youth. Yet, Baldoni and his team of editors (Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan) can't quite find the right balance between these scenes and the more erotic and violent scenes featuring Baldoni and Lively. However, once Brandon Sklenar (doing his best Harry Connick, Jr. in "Hope Floats") enters as the grown-up Atlas, he is able to craft an effortless, natural chemistry with Lively that is nearly as strong as these early moments, although they both are far too fleeting.

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This story of love, trauma and abuse is wrapped up in the same amber-hued autumnal glow of Lively’s bestie Taylor Swift’s short film for her autobiographical song "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)," which itself is about an abusive relationship. Lily even has the same tousled strawberry blonde tresses as the short film's star Sadie Sink. So naturally, the film's most climatic moment of domestic abuse, like the short, takes place in the couple's kitchen. Later, the moment where Lily comes into her own power as she attempts to rebuild her life is underscored by Swift's "My Tears Ricochet" (which perhaps counts as a spoiler if you know the topic of the song. Swifties, I'm sorry.)

"It Ends with Us" is a fine-looking picture. Baldoni and cinematographer Barry Peterson know how to frame movie star faces in flattering medium close-ups, allowing every nuanced emotion, every twinkle in their eyes to transport the viewers on this emotional journey with them, even when the characters feel more like didactic cyphers than fully-realized human beings. Lily’s flower shop (which never seems to have any customers) is a Pinterest board brought to life. And Lively’s designer duds are nearly as showstopping as the ones she sports in “A Simple Favor.”

Lively does her best to add emotional layers to Lily so we see her internal growth, but this process is often hampered by the film around her. I kept thinking of "Alice, Darling,” Mary Nighy's incredible film about intimate partner violence from a few years back in which Anna Kendrick finds herself suffocating in a psychologically abusive relationship. In that film, Kendrick's character is given a full life and a group of friends who help her overcome the codependent trap she's been caged in. Here, the few women in Lily's life – her so-called best friend Allysa and her mother Jenny (Amy Morton) – are underdeveloped, relegated to a handful of scenes that largely exist as plot points.

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The PG-13 rating keeps the violence Ryle inflicts on Lily, or her father's violence in the flashbacks, to a minimum visually (and often seen in slow motion or in choppy montages), Christy Hall’s script unfortunately often falls into "as the father of daughters" territory, giving more care to explaining why these men are the way they are (especially in Ryle's case, in the film's most cringe-worthy twist) than it does to the psychology – let alone the economics – of why women often stay with abusive partners. Instead, this subject, which should really be the key to the whole story, is covered in one very short scene between Lily and her mother. The forced love triangle once Atlas re-enters Lily's adult life also restricts things, causing Lily's life to once again orbit mostly around the men in it.

"It Ends with Us" is certainly not a bad film. At times, it's actually quite good and its central message is crafted with intention and care. I just wish it had a sharper focus on Lily's interiority, her life beyond her trauma, and who she really is in relation to herself, and herself alone.

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Film Credits

It Ends with Us movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert (9)

It Ends with Us (2024)

Rated PG-13

131 minutes

Cast

Blake Livelyas Lily Bloom

Justin Baldonias Ryle Kincaid

Brandon Sklenaras Atlas Corrigan

Jenny Slateas Allysa

Hasan Minhajas Marshall

Director

  • Justin Baldoni

Screenplay

  • Christy Hall

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It Ends with Us movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert (2024)

FAQs

What is the movie It Ends With Us about? ›

What was Ebert's last review? ›

The last review by Ebert published during his lifetime was for The Host, which was published on March 27, 2013. The last review Ebert wrote was for To the Wonder, which he gave 3.5 out of 4 stars in a review for the Chicago Sun-Times. It was posthumously published on April 6, 2013.

What's the movie Maxxxine about? ›

Are they making a movie out of the book It Ends With Us? ›

Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel "It Ends With Us" is coming to the big screen. Set to hit theaters Aug. 9, the adaptation will see Blake Lively bring to life one of Hoover's most memorable characters, Lily Bloom, who grapples with the cyclical nature of domestic violence.

What is It Ends With Us mostly about? ›

This novel focuses on how harmful love can be, and how a person that loves you can hurt you the most. I read this novel during winter break, and all I can say is that it's very impacting and brings awareness to a lot of very sensitive topics.

What is the controversy around It Ends With Us? ›

'It Ends With Us' puts spotlight on domestic violence

The film is an adaptation of the book authored by Colleen Hoover, of the same title. Critics of the film say the story and the press promotions have "romanticized" domestic violence.

Is MaXXXine a sequel to Pearl? ›

MaXXXine is a 2024 American slasher film written, directed, produced, and edited by Ti West. It is the third installment in West's X film series following X and Pearl (both 2022), serving as a direct sequel to the former.

Are Pearl and Maxine the same person? ›

The dual casting was employed by director Ti West to emphasize the similarities between the characters. In X, Mia Goth was cast as both the elderly antagonist, Pearl, and final girl, Maxine Minx, making her the only actress in the film given a dual role.

Who is the villain in MaXXXine? ›

Ernest Miller is the overarching antagonist of Ti West's X trilogy, appearing as a minor character in the 2022 film X and then serving as the main antagonist in the 2024 film MaXXXine. He is the estranged father and archenemy of protagonist Maxine Minx.

Who's playing Atlas in the It Ends With Us movie? ›

Brandon Sklenar as Atlas Corrigan.

Is the movie It Ends With Us on Netflix? ›

Netflix: It Ends with Us is currently not available on Netflix. However, fans of dark fantasy films can explore other thrilling options such as Doctor Strange to keep themselves entertained.

Who does Lily Bloom end up with? ›

Lily co-parents Emerson with Ryle in the book, but the movie changes this to her raising her daughter alone due to Ryle's violence. Lily eventually begins a relationship with Atlas, despite Ryle's threats and violent outbursts, leading to a happy ending.

Who is Ryle in the movie It Ends With Us? ›

Justin Baldoni as Ryle Kincaid.

What is the plot of the It Ends With Us series? ›

It Ends with Us is a book that follows a girl named Lily who has just moved and is ready to start her life after college. Lily then meets a guy named Ryle and she falls for him. As she is developing feelings for Ryle, Atlas, her first love, reappears and challenges the relationship between Lily and Ryle.

Is the movie It Ends With Us about domestic violence? ›

It centers around florist Lily Bloom (played by Lively) and her abusive relationship with a neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid (played by Justin Baldoni). Hoover has said the story was inspired by her parents' abusive marriage.

Is there inappropriate content in the book It Ends With Us? ›

But there is a lot of abuse, sex scenes, and it's emotional, but in a heartbreaking and heartwarming way as Lily finds what she wants to really do in the end.

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