It Ends With Us Review – A Heart-Wrenching Exploration of Trauma

It can be tough to sustain interest in a romantic drama. You watch characters fall in and out of love and if there’s no emotional or comedic backbone to the film, it can often fall apart because it’s too easy not to care. It Ends With Us might stumble in a few areas, but it does develop that emotional backbone, with a promise that you’ll feel strongly about the characters one way or the other. It Ends With Us stars Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) as Lily Bloom, a woman who opens up a flower store. 

As she sets up her flower store she meets Ryle, played by Justin Baldoni (Jane the Virgin) who also directed the film. Ryle is an attractive neurosurgeon, and despite some initial misgivings on her part, he pursues Lily and they fall in love. After Ryle is somewhat abusive to her, she happens to bump into her childhood love, Atlas, played by Brandon Sklenar (The Offer). It Ends With Us also stars Jenny Slate (Zootopia) as Ryle’s sister Allysa, while Amy Morton (Chicago P.D.) plays Lily’s mother Jenny. Isabela Ferrer (Evil) and Alex Neustaedter (Colony) also play the younger versions of Lily and Atlas in flashbacks. 

It Ends With Us – More Than a Love Triangle

The film’s story is – to my surprise – more than just a simple love triangle. In fact, it’s not really that at all. Sure, if you boil the story down to what happens at the end, Lily does pick one of the guys, but it’s not about that. It Ends With Us is about Lily dealing with her past trauma and getting the agency to deal with Ryle’s abuse. It isn’t light on that topic, either. The film is light-hearted, and there are more than a few jokes, but the abuse isn’t treated with kid gloves. It deals with physical violence, emotional abuse, and sexual assault. 

It Ends With Us unpacks trauma quite well, with three separate examples in each of the main characters. We come to find out that Ryle suffered through an accident involving his older brother when he was younger, which informs his abusive behavior. It’s not an excuse for it, but it means that he’s not a mustache-twirling villain. Lily witnessed her father abusing both her mother and Atlas on separate occasions, while Atlas’s mother kicked him out of the house after he tried standing up to her abusive boyfriend. 

Nearly every action feels informed because of these backstories. Making the characters more interesting only raises the audience’s engagement with the film, even if it’s just making you slightly empathize with Ryle or root for Lily and Atlas. Lively is fantastic as Lily, playing her with free-as-a-bird energy. She plays the more light-hearted moments well, and her charisma carries the film. Plus, she has chemistry with both Baldoni and Sklenar. Of course, Lively also lands her emotional, more fearful moments. It’s more than a little terrifying when she’s in danger.

Relationships Are Messy

Baldoni’s performance is good, and he is terrifying in the scenes where Ryle’s gaslighting or abusing Lily. But, his line delivery is quite stiff at times. Yet, there is chemistry between him and Lively, and he does well with the more frantic emotional beats. Sklenar is fairly one-note, brooding most of the time he’s in the film. But, he’s not given too much to do so you can’t fault him too much. Slate’s Allysa and Hasan Minhaj (The Daily Show), who plays her husband, play their moments of levity well. They’re a nice change of pace from the heavier themes. 

It’s also worth talking about the younger version of the characters’ performances. Taking up a juicy chunk of It Ends With Us, Ferrer and Alex do well playing the young counterparts, selling the audience on Lily and Atlas’s romance. Ferrer’s a brilliant piece of casting for Lively as she nails her mannerisms and looks like her too. They’re part of the reason why, even though the movie is on the longer side, it’s well-paced. Because the story takes place over many years, it feels like we’re getting an in-depth look at their lives, justifying the 130-minute runtime. 

Going back to the chemistry, part of the reason the relationships work as well as they do is because of the dialogue. Written by Christy Hall (I Am Not Okay With This), most of the dialogue as Ryle and Lily get to know each other is charming. Some of it is awkward and cringeworthy, which is only punctuated by Baldoni’s stiff delivery, but it feels natural for the most part. Of course, it does help that all the leads look incredibly charismatic.

A Happy Ending

Another highlight was the film’s licensed soundtrack. It features songs from Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lewis Capaldi, and Birdy. While the music never quite hits the emotional high points of the film, the songs do accompany the story well. One of my major gripes with the film is that it doesn’t look all that great. There’s a specific scene with Lily and Atlas in her store that could have used a gimbal or a clean-up in post-production as the camera was quite shaky. That’s just one example of a consistent problem in the movie.

As the plot of It Ends With Us unraveled, I found myself wondering if the abuse plot would end up feeling too underhanded. The film is light-hearted for the most part, and it was at times struggling to find the right balance. However, it takes the instances of abuse seriously and because it’s got an emotional core, those scenes don’t come off as emotionally manipulative, but rooted in character. This makes the film not only successful but also makes for an engrossing narrative.

It Ends With Us isn’t a well-shot film and some of the writing is hit-or-miss, but Lively’s performance and a gripping emotional story elevate it. With a few laughs, some cringing, and skin-crawling tension, It Ends With Us is a very good romantic drama. Fans of the genre should go see this one in the theater. 

You can watch It Ends With Us when it releases on August 9, 2024.