It Ends With Us Gets Mixed Reviews

Blake Lively's new film It Ends With Us is receiving mixed reviews, following her recent appearance at the premiere. 

Blake stars as the lead in the film based on a best-selling book of the same name, released in 2016 and written by Colleen Hoover. 

The book went viral on TikTok back in 2021 and has had critics accusing Colleen of romanticising abuse. 

Blake plays Lily Bloom, a college graduate who has been scarred by a history of domestic violence. She resents both her parents, her dad was the abuser, and her mother covered it up. She moves to Boston to follow her dream of opening a florist shop. 

She proceeds to meet Ryle Kincaid, portrayed by Justin Baldoni, who is a neurosurgeon. While the chemistry sparks almost instantaneously, there are warning signs of abuse. 

Despite various violent incidents, they marry before conceiving their first child. Around the same time, Lily reconnects with her childhood love Atlas Corrigan, played by Brandon Sklenar. 

It Ends With Us opened in theatres in Australia on August 8th, however, early reviews were mixed. 

The Telegraph rated the film two stars saying, "The swerves and mitigations – not least an obligatory tragic backstory to “explain” Ryle – make it a queasy, self-regarding sham."

Associated Press claimed several themes “suffer” as it attempts to "balance the realities of domestic violence inside a rom-com and a female-empowerment movie."

Other reviews include one from The New York Post, which said the violent scenes were “hard to watch," but were "less chilling than they would be in reality."

“The mix of those two very different tones — glossy love and horrific clashes — borders on tacky. Baldoni finds a balance, though, and his film never slides into poor taste.

"There’s even a bit of truth to how a woman in such a situation might delude herself by using fantasy to distract from the cause of her pain. Indeed, Lily makes many excuses for Ryle until it becomes too much to bear.”

The Times argued that The movie is accurate and effective in this sense: for so many abused women, you never know how bad it can get, until it gets really bad."

"Yet none of that is enough to make you fully buy what the movie’s selling."

Finally, Digital Spy claimed Ryle’s character "thankfully" didn’t get as much of a hero arc in the film as he did in the book.

“A more warranted criticism can (and should) be expressed about Ryle, a character whose controversial redemption arc is thankfully less present in the movie than in the book."