It Ends With Us is a romance novel made notably famous on ‘Book-tok’. This novel written by Colleen Hoover touches on sensitive topics like domestic violence, abuse, and self-discovery, making it an already controversial book. The book follows the main character Lily Bloom, an aspiring florist who witnessed firsthand her fathers domestic abuse on her mother. Following his funeral, Lily finds herself meeting Ryle, a successful surgeon, on the rooftop of a building and whom she later falls in love with. As her relationship with Ryle blossoms, and her dream of opening a florist shop comes true, she ends up remeeting Atlas, her first love that she met at 16. Lily and Ryle’s relationship starts to take a turn, and Ryle starts turning physically abusive, Lily questions her relationship. Should she stay with Ryle and endure the abuse? Or should the abuse end with her? 

Following the success of the book, Blake Lively produced and adapted it into a film that came out late last year. While the book has some controversy, it often faced positive praise for shedding light on escaping abusive relationships, while the film adaptation faced huge backlash and suffered in the box office. Many might wonder why the film performed poorly when it followed both the book’s timeline and plot. First, there was a subtle change with Lily opening her florist shop as a college graduate in the book. Unsure of what to do in her new adulthood, Lily decides to follow her childhood dream and become a florist. However, in the film Lily is an older adult, who quits her job to open the florist shop. Though it is a more subtle change, setting Lily as an older adult contributed to a more noticeable difference of time in the film’s story line. Lily experiences this cycle of abuse and love at a later stage in her life, having a different mentality. Lily is no longer some young, clueless girl who realizes the gravity of her relationship with both Ryle and Atlas. She’s now portrayed as a 40-something year old with more experience under her belt and able to make more conscious and grounded decisions. Not saying that abuse only happens to younger adults, but the point is that much more time has passed between Lily’s relationship with Atlas and her newer one with Ryle– In the book and the movie, Lily and Atlas met when they were teens, making their relationship a young heartbreak. In the book, Ryle and Lily start their relationship when they are just young college graduates, however in the book Ryle and Lily start their relationship in their early 40’s, showing a drastic difference in age. 

A more notable change in the film’s adaption was Atlas and Lily’s relationship. While the film kept the part of them dating while they were younger, the end of their relationship was kept in the air during the film. In the book, Lily and Atlas met and dated, while Lily took care of Atlas in secret while he was sick in her family’s shack. But when things got worse, Atlas had to be taken to the hospital and he promised to come get her but he never does, signifying the end of their relationship. However in the film, Atlas is taken to the hospital and we never see him again until he is much older. The end of their relationship is unknown, up for interpretation for the viewers.

Dare I say the most memorable change in the film was the lack thereof of the Ellen DeGeneres Show and the Finding Nemo mantra. One of the most important parts of Lily’s childhood and her relationship with Atlas was her love for the Ellen DeGeneres show. In a way to cope with her difficult childhood and rocky relationship with her parents, young Lily would write in her diary addressing her little notes and updates on her life to Ellen Degeneres while watching her show. This connected and grounded Lily during a confusing time in her life. Yet in the movie, Lily is seen watching the show for a brief period but her diary is not seen anywhere. Later on, once Lily and Atlas’ friendship begins to bloom, a very important mantra in their lives was “just keep swimming’ from Find Nemo. This saying pushed them and helped them overcome their own adversities when they needed it the most. They would remind each other of this mantra to encourage one another. 

With this modern adaption of the book into a movie, the film failed to capture the authenticity and rawness that the book immersed readers in. With its detailed plot lines, or descriptive language about each character, the film’s failure to capture many of these details stripped the characters of their relatability. Lily no longer felt warm and approachable, with her young ambition and vulnerability, and with the smallest lack of detail of her diaries, she missed the relatability mark for me. She seemed more like a movie character than the sweet next-door-neighbor that the book illustrated her to be, making her character less immersive. 

Honorable Mentions:

Casting: The casting of this film was just off for me. I know that the characters are supposed to be older, but the way social media and Book-Tok has portrayed Lily’s, Ryle’s, and Atlas’ characters made me imagine them much more differently. From fan pages of instagram posts, votes on certain actors and models to play the roles, to just fan picks of how the characters should be portrayed, had been drawn up in such imaginative ways that let me down when I saw the film’s actual cast. As Blake Lively was casted to play Lily, something felt out of place. In my mind, Lily was a strawberry blonde with a young ambition to open her flower shop, and I felt Blake Lively’s experience overshadowed this dream. I recognized her face from her many iconic past roles, and felt that Hollywood needed a fresh face to play Lily. The movie should have stayed in the plot line of having Lily, Atlas, and Ryle being young, early 20 year olds, not older adults. Therefore, the cast for young Lily perfectly captured this role, and she should’ve been casted for Lily the whole movie. 

Costumes: The notorious Blake Lively costumes. While some of the outfits can be understood for Lily’s character with its vibrant colors and floral patterns that sort of relate to Lily’s job as a florist, some costumes have taken such great artist liberties that they should be put in fashion jail. The overlaying, ‘underwear on the outside of clothes’ and excessive, ‘heavy’ patterning made it very out of reach for Lily’s character.

Promotion: The most controversial part of this film was the promotion of it. First, Colleen Hoover creates a collaboration with a nail polish line to promote It Ends With Us. While the polishes have very generic names, like Brave Blush, Team Manuscript, and Flew in Love, it’s the message of the book and its pairing with nail polishes that make it so controversial. Since the book’s message is breaking the cycle of abuse pairing it with nail polish and making a profit off of it just seems wrong and sends a wrong message to consumers. Not only was the movie promoted via nail polish, but Blake Lively used it as a platform to promote her own hairline, Blake Brown. While the hairline was successful at first, it fueled the controversial scandal of campaigning smearing her co-star Justin Baldoni. Lastly, when promoting the film, Lively stated her infamous “Grab your friends, wear your florals and head to theaters” during a promotional video. This line received huge backlash, as it was deemed disrespectful to real survivors and romanticized domestic violence. 

This isn’t to say that I have something against Blake Lively, I actually adored her many other roles, from Age of Adeline to The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, to just the iconic Serena Van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl, but It Ends With Us was just a huge miss for me. Also just the drama that has followed the tail of the film’s release (Lively and Baldoni) diminished the important conversations about domestic violence and abusive relationships. While the book became popular for the right reasons, the film adaptation was messy and may not be worth the watch.