The past and present collide in this well-acted romantic drama.
I went to see “It Ends With Us” with my sister and her friends last night, and we all enjoyed it. She read Colleen Hoover’s book, and she told me: “I thought it really closely resembled the book,” and “It was spot on from what I remember.” Like movies and TV, there are too many books in the world for me to read or know about, so I haven’t heard of it, but I’m gonna take my sister’s reaction to heart.
Given the fact that tickets to this movie are selling out for various showtimes (mostly at night), “It Ends With Us” could be in the tradition of chick flicks, as long as they don’t take the idiot approach of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” and my sister hated that movie, too. And from what I have seen last night, it is in the tradition, but it doesn’t have to act like a generic one. It can act as if the past and the present were colliding, and therefore affecting one’s woman’s romance.
Blake Lively produces and stars as Lily Bloom, a first-time flower shop owner in Boston, who returns home for her father’s (Kevin McKidd) funeral, and given the fact that he was abusive to her mother Jenny (Amy Morton), she has nothing good to say about him in her eulogy.
After returning home, she meets the neurosurgeon Ryle (the director Justin Baldoni), and they both tell each other they’re not into romance or relationships. But as she opens her flower store (“Lily Bloom’s”) and realizes that her new employee and BF Allyssa (Jenny Slate) is his sister, sparks fly. And they can both save their breath if they say they’re going to be just friends.
Just as their relationship takes off, she reunites with her first love Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), who owns and runs the restaurant “Roots.” But things take a darker path, when Ryle’s behavior begins to remind her of her abusive father.
The screenplay for “It Ends With Us” was written by Christy Hall, who just made the exceptional “Daddio,” and they’re both movies about a woman’s past and the present, which are levitated by exceptional leading performances. Yes, I’ve gotten disillusioned by the abuse scenes and I wish I had a nickel for every time two people in a romance say they want to be friends. But I also see how the past and present make Lily, and how she learns to thrive on whatever happens in her love story. And Lively is exceptional in this very notion.
There’s also some good supporting work from Baldoni and Sklenar, who both don’t succumb to cliches regarding the kind man and the poisoned man colliding, even though they have a fight scene in the center. And Slate is funny and good-hearted with better considering than the Molly Gordon character in “Am I OK,” and I liked that film.
Baldoni (who is best known for his role on “Jane the Virgin”) made his directorial debut of “Five Feet Apart,” which I felt was flimsy. His current romance “It Ends With Us” is better than that film, because of the pure emotions he allows his leading lady to have, and how he balances himself on both sides of the camera. And whatever cynicism thrives in the story, we’re able to thrive on them, and so can I.
I’m glad I got to spend some time with my sister on this movie.