'It Ends with Us' Can't Deliver Tears
Here are all the qualities of a Lifetime movie in one package. It Ends with Us is a sappy 2-hour and 10-minute film with more montages than a Rocky film. Director and star Justin Baldoni tries desperately to reach audiences' hearts. His overreach is extremely clear through the film's usage of soft music. You know, that mushy stuff that's great on the radio but way too bludgeoning when used in a movie. I like Taylor Swift, but her song "My Tears Ricochet" is like the director directing the audience to cry. I get it, it's sentimental. But my God, it's too sentimental. After the movie ended, I was speaking to a fellow critic who said the flick reminded her of a Spielberg film. If, by meaning, Spielberg can be too sentimental at times, then yes, it's emotionally like Steven Spielber's worst films.
I get that this film is based on a hit book. I'm sure it's just as lovey-dovey as the movie is. That's great. I appreciate books that appeal to the public. Honestly, I'm just happy people are still reading. When watching It Ends with Us as a movie, it plays like a stereotypical romance. There's a love triangle, an abusive partner, and daddy issues. These are overused elements. I can see in a book how the narrative works. The story touches on subjects like domestic abuse. In the book, I can see it as shocking. In the movie, the director softens the violence of these horrific events so we don't completely hate Lily's (Blake Lively) husband, Ryle (Justin Baldoni). I understand why Baldoni did that, but it just makes something as serious as domestic violence seem generic. The film goes to a lot of places. Babies are being born, and people are getting married. The story spans many years. For a book, you can feel the progression of those years on the page. Or I presume the book doesn't skip through time. For a movie, it moves too quickly to be effective.
Still, the movie takes its time. Sometimes, too much time. There's a huge overreliance on montages, while mellow tunes from Lana Del Rey and Brittany Spears make my eyes roll to the back of my head. Half the length of the flick is just montages of people crying and hugging because the movie has more filler than actual good screenwriting. The story has too many coincidences and similarities in its characters to make it anything new. While the narrative moves at a snail's pace, the love story hits the accelerator right away when it should be hitting the brakes.
When we first meet our love interests, it's on the roof of a building. Ryle kicks a chair in anger, not noticing Lily sitting on the ledge behind him. When the two sit together and converse, we learn a lot about them in little time, doing a good job introducing us to the characters. Ryle is a neurosurgeon who just lost a child, and Lily is opening up her own flower shop. Then, things in the scene go south. After just meeting this girl, Ryle tells her that he wants to have sex with her. Presumably, most guys would be slapped in the face, or the girl would just leave. But when you have a tall, handsome, fit, tanned guy like Justin Baldoni, I guess you can get away with it. Lily almost takes Riley up on his offer for sex. At one point in the scene, the two pull chairs close together and are about to kiss. Well, that escalated quickly. Why do movies make us believe that all women would fall head over heels for a guy when they first meet him? Can't a relationship develop first? For once? In one movie?
Lily's dream of opening a flower shop becomes a reality with the help of her new employee/friend, Allysa (Jenny Slate). And wouldn't you know it, Ryle is her brother. Here's another problem I have with these stories. Everyone seems to coincidentally run into each other, although they live in Boston. It's like Spider-Man, where Peter Parker happens to run into Mary Jane everywhere he goes, although the two live in New York City. Ryle and Lily already live in the same building as it's established in their meet cute. So why not just run into each other again in the building? Why does Ryle have to conveniently be Allysa's brother? I don't care if that was in the book. It's lazy writing.
Even more conveniently, Lily runs into her original flame, who happens to own the restaurant she always goes to. Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) notices a bruise on Lily's eye. Presumably given by her husband. Trying to protect Lily, Atlas encounters Ryle turning things extremely ugly. Atlas is an interesting character. He has such a strong reaction to domestic abuse because he was a victim of it through his father. Lily is the same way. Her father, too, was an abusive monster. The cycle of domestic violence is complete in a well-rounded package. The only problem is, that package is filled with enough cliches and mushy nonsense, to make me want to see this film on Hallmark instead of the big screen.
The movie does a noble job of trying to make us understand why a woman would stick around with her abuser. There's even a great monologue from Jenny Slate that is the highest performance of the film, outside of Blake Lively, who does an admirable job. She busts out the emotions she needs to, but she doesn't do anything to blow me away. How was Justin Baldow's performance? Meh. He mostly just has to be intimidating and handsome. That's kind of an easy role to fill. Unfortunately, what the movie is trying to say about domestic abuse gets watered down in a film that fails to deliver anything original. Or develop one of its main characters. We barely know anything about Ryle other than he's a hot nerusurgeon who has a short temper. More needed to be told about him for me to care about him. It Ends with Us is a delicate film that plays things too safe for it to be anything different from another run-of-the-mill romantic film.
