Disclaimer: This movie is based on the book It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover, which I didn’t read, nor did I have any idea what the movie was about… aside from it being based on a book and Blake Lively starring in it. So, do with this what you will :*
About a week ago, I asked my sister (or she asked me?) if she wanted to watch a movie, and she said yes. She didn’t feel like watching anything with subtitles and suggested It Ends With Us. I wasn’t too excited about it because of all the things I had heard about it last year. I remember seeing YouTube videos about how horrible the movie was. And when it got to that balcony scene, I understood what everyone was talking about.
It was unbearably cringe—not because they were telling their whole life stories within three minutes of knowing each other… because, to be honest, that’s me. Or because he was abusing a trash can. But it literally felt like I was watching actors act, especially with Blake’s character, Lily Blossom Bloom. Yes, her name is actually Lily Blossom Bloom… and she’s a florist.
Ryle and Lily didn’t give chemistry. Lily’s laugh seemed forced, and Ryles banter just came across as some crap every guy says when he’s trying to get someone into bed. So, I’m not sure how that had Lily head over heels. However, aside from this scene, Lily’s horrible outfits (except that one black dress she wore to her sister-in-law’s party, that one ate), and the tension in the scene where she was telling her abusive, manipulative husband that she wanted a divorce while he was holding their baby (that I thought was going to get thrown out the window), it was pretty… dare I say, good?
So this movie is about a young lady who falls for charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, only to realize he’s nothing like the fantasies she’s built in her head, whispers he’s worse. This forces her to confront her past in order to heal and move forward.
A lot of people who read the book didn’t like how the characters were portrayed in the movie because they didn’t match their description. Lily was supposed to appear way younger and more stylish. Ryle was supposed to be a bit younger. Making the movie feel less believable to them.
But to me, just someone watching without reading the book. I just saw it as two unique New Yorkers with different lifestyles falling in love. Although Lily’s style in this movie wasn’t that great. It was still believable to me that someone who’s studying to become a doctor could be attracted to her uniqueness. You know some people are attracted to their opposites…that wear hideous outfits.
Final Thoughts
As the movie went on, it got smoother, and I grew to enjoy it. The characters seemed more in tune with each other, making the relationship more believable and less like actors acting out a script.
The red herring in the movie was brilliant. At first, the relationship seemed one way, but it was something completely different. Took me a while to realize that something was off. Like they kept having these incidents where it looked abusive but there was a very fine grey lines that made you be like, “oh I can see how that was an accident”. That was very profound because it mimics real life. How often times we are experiencing things/trauma but block it out, lying to ourselves to make sense of the situation.
Rating: 6.5/10
Besides the first 25 minutes and some cringe, I surprisingly ended up enjoying the movie. I felt like the themes were handled decently. Not sure if it’s a must-watch, but if you have some free time and like dramas that explore complex relationships, it’s worth checking out.
