{"id":2212,"date":"2024-08-10T03:51:54","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T03:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2024-10-19T21:54:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T01:54:55","slug":"it-ends-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/10\/it-ends-with-us\/","title":{"rendered":"It Ends with Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It Ends with Us<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 130 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (domestic violence, sexual content, some strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Justin Baldoni\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Christy Hall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rob Simonsen and Duncan Blickenstaff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Barry Peterson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 9, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar, Kevin McKidd, Amy Morton, Alex Neustaedter, Isabela Ferrer, Robert Clohessy.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t do an official count, but I was one of less than five guys in attendance at the Friday afternoon showing of It Ends with Us<\/strong>, a romantic drama starring Blake Lively (A Simple Favor) as a young woman looking to break the cycle of domestic violence that has followed her all her life. She watched helplessly as her father beat her mother. Now she\u2019s in an abusive relationship with a charming but unhinged neurosurgeon from whom she must extricate herself in order to self-heal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It Ends with Us<\/strong> opens with its heroine Lily Bloom driving to Maine to attend her father\u2019s funeral. Her mother (Morton, Chicago PD) wants her to say a few words at the service, but she can\u2019t think of a single nice thing to say about the man she saw do unspeakable things. She runs back to Boston where she\u2019s about to open her own business, a flower shop. With a name like Lily Bloom (middle name, Blossom), what other business would she be in?<\/p>\n

\u00a0She\u2019s sitting on a building rooftop contemplating the beauty of the city at night when Ryle Kincaid (played by the film\u2019s director Justin Baldoni) comes bursting onto the scene, throwing steel chairs around in a fit of anger. This should be a huge red flag, but Lily ignores the obvious and falls sway to his charming demeanor. They\u2019re about a kiss when Ryle\u2019s beeper goes off summoning him to the hospital for an emergency. She dodges a bullet, but only temporarily.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One day, Ryle turns up at Lily\u2019s shop. It turns out he\u2019s the twin brother of her only employee, rich and bored housewife Allysa (Slate, Obvious Child). He starts to pursue her romantically. She tells him she doesn\u2019t want to be in a relationship. He persists and eventually wears her down. She thinks she\u2019s found happiness with Ryle, but what they have can\u2019t be called love. He\u2019s controlling and manipulative. She lets him get away with his behavior. She becomes his emotional and physical punching bag.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not like Lily has never known love before in her life. The present-day narrative is interwoven with scenes of teenage Lily (Ferrer) falling in love for the first time with her classmate Atlas (Neustaedter, Colony), a fellow abuse sufferer squatting in an abandoned house across the street from hers. He\u2019s a kind, gentle soul who makes her feel safe. Unfortunately, disapproving Dad makes him go away. That\u2019s not the end of their story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Just around the time Lily gets with Ryle, she meets Atlas (Sklenar, 1923) again. He now runs a trendy restaurant where Lily happens to be having dinner with her mother and her boyfriend. It\u2019s clear they still have feelings for each other. When Ryle gets wind of it, he becomes extremely jealous. \u00a0He warns Lily to stay away from her old flame or else. Why does this girl not heed the obvious warning signs? This man is damaged goods.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Adapted from the best seller by Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us<\/strong> follows a fairly predictable story arc and takes a long time to get there. I knew where it was going at all times. It\u2019s familiar territory even to those of us who don\u2019t gorge on Lifetime movies. There\u2019s one story development having to do with a traumatic event in Ryle\u2019s childhood that isn\u2019t really that surprising. I had a feeling that would be the case. While I don\u2019t mind the predictability of it all, I wish it had been a little more compelling. It\u2019s never a boring film, it just doesn\u2019t pull you into the drama like it should.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lively delivers a powerful albeit understated performance as Lily. She doesn\u2019t go for histrionics like Bette Davis in anyone of her melodramas. You can see the depth of her silent suffering in the way she carries herself and facial expressions which barely conceal her fear of the man she says she loves. Baldoni likewise keeps it in check as the abusive lover which only makes his violent outbursts all the more frightening. Sklenar has some good scenes as a decent man still in love with his first love. Slate is a fine actress equally adept at comedy and drama. Unfortunately, she\u2019s underserved by the screenplay. I wish they had done more with the mother too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can\u2019t say that I love It Ends with Us<\/strong>, but I certainly do admire it. It shines a light on a serious issue without exploiting it. I just wish it spent more time exploring the psychology of the women who get caught up in abusive relationships. That should have been the central focus of the story. It is, after all, a chick flick. Do we really need another domestic abuse drama that tells us why these men are the way they are? It\u2019s a misstep, but not a fatal one. The film\u2019s intentions are good. It obviously cares about its subject. I can\u2019t knock it for that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It Ends with Us (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 130 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (domestic violence, sexual content, some strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Justin Baldoni\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Christy Hall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rob Simonsen and Duncan Blickenstaff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Barry Peterson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 9, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar, Kevin McKidd, Amy Morton, Alex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/It-Ends-with-Us-PIC.png?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions\/2501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}