It Ends With Us | Film Review

After falling for neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni) at the same time her first love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), comes back into her life, Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) finds herself in a relationship that mimics her childhood trauma.

I reviewed the book this film is based on HERE, and after reading the book I was really excited to finally see the film.

All in all, I had mixed feelings about the movie.

For a start, I was sceptical about some of the casting choices before seeing the film, and while I do feel like all the actors did great in their roles, some of them probably should have been more accurate to their book descriptions.

I also felt that a lot of the cast was underused. Yes this is a story about Lily, Ryle and Atlas, but there are a good few supporting characters that didn't have the importance they were given in the novel.

And this is even true of major characters. For example, I thought the present-day relationship between Atlas and Lily was really watered down in comparison to the book. You get to see Lily fall for Ryle but you don't get to see why she's so drawn back to Atlas.

But in contrast to this, the relationship between Atlas and Lily as teenagers was done really well. The actors who played their younger selves, Isabela Ferrer and Alex Neustaedter, were great. They had such good chemistry and it would have been interesting to see a bit more of their points of view.

The filmmakers did a good job of making the abuse gradual, and allowing us to understand exactly why Lily was able to question the incidents. 

In general Lily is a good protagonist, and the film created a connection between her and the audience that was really interesting. We immediately empathise and sympathise with her, we're rooting for her almost from her first moment on screen. This was partly due to the way she was written and adapted from the novel, but she was also played really authentically.

Overall, the movie isn't as powerful as it could be, but I still think it was successful in showing the way domestic violence can affect a family through generations. It was also a close adaptation to the book, so if you liked the book, you'll probably like the movie too.

6/10