--- title: Review: It Ends With Us Can't Quite Turn Trauma into Drama description: 'It Ends With Us,' starring Blake Lively, captures the insidiousness of domestic abuse but leaves little room for emotional catharsis canonical: https://time.com/7008496/it-ends-with-us-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-12-09T15:41:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:52:06.647Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: It Ends With Us og:description: 'It Ends With Us,' starring Blake Lively, captures the insidiousness of domestic abuse but leaves little room for emotional catharsis og:url: https://time.com/7008496/it-ends-with-us-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73af2a2a1743d826/698a59a4096a9472a26b0cfa/unnamed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 11362690 - It Ends With Us og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: It Ends With Us twitter:description: 'It Ends With Us,' starring Blake Lively, captures the insidiousness of domestic abuse but leaves little room for emotional catharsis twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73af2a2a1743d826/698a59a4096a9472a26b0cfa/unnamed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _It Ends With Us_ Can't Quite Turn Trauma into Drama  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Dec 9, 2024 3:41 PM UTC  Justin Baldoni and Blake Likely in It Ends With Us Justin Baldoni and Blake Likely in It Ends With UsCourtesy of Sony Pictures  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Dec 9, 2024 3:41 PM UTC _This piece was originally published when_ It Ends With Us _hit theaters in August 2024\. It's being republished as the movie arrives on Netflix on Dec. 9, 2024._ A movie or book can address a serious, emotionally wrenching subject and still be a thing you can’t help snickering at, a dramatic pileup that leaves you muttering “Oh, come on!” under your breath. [_It Ends With Us_](https://time.com/6221457/colleen-hoover-trauma-it-starts-with-us/), the film adaptation of [Colleen Hoover](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2023/6268982/colleen-hoover/)’s ferociously popular 2016 novel, works hard to ping all the appropriate notes. This is after all, a story of domestic abuse, a more widely shared experience in real life than most of us want to face up to. (Hoover has said that the book was inspired by her mother, who was physically abused by Hoover’s father.) And the objective reality is that we _need_ movies like _It Ends With Us_. The classic genre known as the woman’s film—pictures like King Vidor’s 1937 _Stella Dallas,_ or either version of _Imitation of Life,_ filmed first by John Stahl in 1934 and later, in 1959, by Douglas Sirk—thrived in the ’30s, ’40s, and beyond by carving out a [safe space for emotional catharsis](https://time.com/6292991/colleen-hoover-interview-book-bonanza/). Women, and sometimes men, often need to cry it all out, and aren’t the movies—a refuge in the dark—the perfect place to do that? But _It Ends With Us_—directed by Justin Baldoni, who also co-stars—doesn’t have the mojo to get the waterworks pumping, not even in a gentle, reserved way. [Blake Lively](https://time.com/6693314/who-taylor-swift-brought-to-super-bowl/) stars as the kookily named Lily Bloom, a thoughtful young woman with a hippie-patchwork wardrobe and a guardedly bright outlook on life. She lives in Boston; she’s about to open her own flower shop, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. In all ways, this is a period of transition. Her father has just died, and she’s not sure what to do with her mixed feelings; as we learn more about the way he abused Lily’s mother, and others, we understand why. Lily has just returned from the funeral, held in her Maine hometown, and with her jumbled thoughts, she has stolen away to a Boston rooftop with a dreamy view. But she doesn’t actually live in the building. And when a handsome neurosurgeon, who _is_ a resident, blusters his way onto that rooftop, you get the sense her life will be changed forever. **Read more:** [_Here's How the_ It Ends With Us _Movie Adaptation Differs From the Book_](https://time.com/7008777/it-ends-with-us-book-movie-differences/) His name is Ryle Kincaid—he’s played by Baldoni—and he's almost criminally handsome, with his sympathetic dark eyes and 10 o’clock shadow, even sexier than the 5 o’clock kind. He’s just got to be a wolf in wolf’s clothing, and in the first minutes of their meeting, it sure seems that way. The two find themselves engaged in the kind of disarmingly frank conversation that can often brew between strangers. He’s had a terrible day; she’s just lost her father, a man she loved despite the fact he might not have deserved it. Ryle listens to her, but he also tells her, “I want to have sex with you,” clearly taken with her haute-hippie-girl breeziness, which glows even through her conflicted grief. And though she calls him out, rightly, on his perhaps overly direct sales pitch, they almost do sleep together—until he’s called away to work. Because a handsome neurosurgeon’s work is never done.  Jenny Slate and Blake Lively Courtesy of Sony Pictures Lily thinks that’s the end of it. A day or so later she gets the keys to her new shop and sets about sprucing it up, both hiring a helper and making a new friend on the same day: rich lady Allysa (the always-wonderful [Jenny Slate](https://time.com/6191129/jenny-slate-interview/), who breathes some life into the movie whenever she’s on-screen) just happens to stop in. She wants a job; trusting her instincts, Lily gives her one. The two become fast friends. And guess what? It turns out that semi-scary Dr. McDreamy, AKA Ryle, is Allysa's _brother._ What are the odds? Though Allysa offers a few subtle warnings about Ryle’s [romantic history](https://time.com/7003635/casey-mcquiston-romance-novels-literature/), he and Lily fall in love anyway. Sure, he’s a player. But he makes it clear he wants to try for a real relationship with Lily. She goes for it—and then a love from her teenage years, whom we’ve previously met in flashbacks, unexpectedly steps into the frame. Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), is now a handsome but down-to-earth Boston restaurateur, and when Lily spots him, we can see there's still a spark between the two. But Lily has already earned Ryle’s trust; she decides to stay the course. Until this point, _It Ends With Us_ could be your [classic but not-too-heavy romantic melodrama](https://time.com/collection/best-romance-books/), replete with hot but tender sex and dashes of romantic befuddlement. But if you’ve [read Hoover’s book](https://time.com/6221457/colleen-hoover-trauma-it-starts-with-us/), you’ll know what’s coming. Lily herself becomes the victim of domestic abuse, and it doesn’t arrive with loud warning bells. In fact, the first time Lily is injured, resulting in a bruised eye she attempts to conceal with makeup, the event is presented as an accident triggered by a scuffle to remove a burned frittata from the oven. It could happen to anyone. But the second incident is more clear-cut, and the third is unequivocally violent. Still, you look at Ryle, as Lily seems to, as possibly fixable. He’s suffering; his inner turmoil is causing him to act out. 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. **Read more:** [_The Real Problem With the Costumes in_ It Ends With Us](https://time.com/7009691/it-ends-with-us-costumes-blake-lively/) Yet none of that is enough to make you fully buy what the movie’s selling. Lively has been terrific in other movies: her turn in the 2016 woman-vs.-shark thriller _The Shallows_ was one of the great scream-queen performances of the last decade, and she showed nervy gravitas in Ben Affleck’s _The Town._ But _It Ends With Us_ lets her down. The men, with their flaws—even kind, stalwart Atlas has a very short fuse, a yellow flag if not a red one—are far more interesting than Lily is. That doesn’t give them the right to inflict violence; but from a dramatic standpoint, it certainly makes them more electric. As Lively plays her, Lily is a blank, glassy surface, the better to reflect the shortcomings of the men around her; that’s not the same as being a person. Even by the movie’s end, she still feels like something of a muted stranger—it’s the men who come off as fully alive, as dangerous as one of them may be. The problem, maybe, is that _It Ends With Us_ is all about what it’s about, and nothing more. These characters exist to make points about the insidiousness of domestic violence, the way its effects can creep up invisibly even as those who are suffering cloak themselves in protective denial. Admittedly, that’s a lot for a movie to carry. But movies can’t just be efficient feeling-delivery systems; they have to work on us in subtler ways. _It Ends With Us_ makes all its points, all right, but in a way that’s more edifying than moving. And despite the prettiness of its Boston setting, it isn’t as visually alluring as it should be. For one thing, this is a movie about a flower-loving florist that’s embarrassingly low on flowers, except for a few droopy, half-dead Victorian-looking things. It’s OK, even in a story addressing a traumatic subject, to dab a little color here and there. Flowers, their short-lived beauty notwithstanding, can often brighten even the bleakest day. 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