Review: ‘It Ends With Us’ Struggles to Hide Behind Its Star Power
'It Ends With Us' (2024)
Romance movies—especially those that find love in the darkest corners of interpersonal relationships—have long been the black sheep in the movie business during the reign of superhero behemoths. Who wants romance when action is all the rage? Those seeking a romance film often have to sift through the many streaming services offering new romances of varying quality. But something has changed. In the last few years, there has been a shift away from CGI spectacles to grounded dramas with familiar faces, banking on the hope that familiarity is enough to draw in an audience. In some ways, it is.
It Ends With Us is as familiar as a romance movie can get. Adapted from the novel of the same name, which sold nearly 8 million copies and spent some 140 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, by the infamous Colleen Hoover—who has garnered attention for her outlandish storytelling—it presents itself as a romantic story that harkens back to classic love triangles like My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Notebook. Then, halfway through the story, it switches into something far more serious than the movie’s writer, Christy Hall, or director/star, Justin Baldoni, are willing to fully address.
It Ends With Us works as a romance movie. The tropes are there: the meet-cute between a Mary Sue and the guy who doesn’t do relationships, the sparks that fly each time they run into each other, the pivotal moment where everything snaps together for the endgame couple, and the final kiss to seal their romantic fate. Who doesn’t love a trope in a genre movie, especially when it’s executed so damn well?
The problem with the movie lies in its dedication to the source material and the behind-the-scenes drama that broke the movie’s glitzy illusion of love.
For those unaware of Hoover’s classic take on romance, her stories are usually targeted at New Adults (18-24) and tend to find light in the trauma of the characters. While the traumas are extremely serious (child death, domestic abuse, addiction), there is something sensational about her simple storytelling that makes reading her books feel easy. For the not-so-avid reader, these books take only a few days to get through, thanks to the simple language and Hoover’s reluctance to fully form characters who have grown alongside their respective traumas.
It Ends With Us is no exception.
Like the book, the movie straddles the line between the gravity of its subject and widespread appeal. Anytime the subject matter becomes too dark, a “sad girl” pop song starts to play as Lily (Blake Lively) tries to make it through her day, lost in thought about her love life while she puts together a flower display. The gravity should be there, but you just want to sing along to the song.
While Lively has boasted in interviews that this was her goal with the movie—and something she has the right to do as a producer—Baldoni wanted to focus on the story’s weight, which is why he purchased the rights to the story. The balance is a difficult one to find, especially when the two lead creatives behind the project are battling over the film’s tone. Is it a light and funny rom-com with some dark moments, or is it a story about a woman finding the power within herself to escape her abusive partner?
Unfortunately, It Ends With Us doesn’t seem interested in answering that question. Instead, it wants to be Romance Lite, a flavor of romance that fantasizes about a girl boss navigating real-world situations while still finding love in the end. The trauma of the story doesn’t feel like the drama Baldoni and Lively try to tell us it is. It instead feels like pandering, telling the audience that this is just a bump in the road for a woman on her way to finding Mr. Right. This movie wants to carry more weight, but it sags and feels like it’s stepping out of place when it does so. The audience is trapped with Lily in that lifeless, Victorian-esque flower shop, waiting for something to come in and treat the darkness as if it's worth the light.
'It Ends With Us' (2024)
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Romance is hard; there’s no denying that. Yet the genre has dominated the zeitgeist throughout 2024, thanks to Anyone but You and The Idea of You. It would be impossible to move through the cinematic landscape without noting how successful It Ends With Us is, despite its many, many flaws.
I recommend you watch it knowing that this is one of the more faithful book adaptations since Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings franchise. That means you should be aware of the tonal shift, the triggering subject matter, and the way everything is resolved in the end, which feels like a fantasy. This isn’t a serious romance that will stand the test of time, but it is something that could shape the next few years of the business as more and more people look to BookTok to see what stories should be adapted.
Again, don’t expect the next great romance movie. Instead, expect something like Pretty Woman: taboo subjects made light for a broad audience. The only difference is that It Ends With Us suffers greatly from competing ideas both in front of and behind the camera, which make their way on screen in more ways than one.
