At first, a glossy romantic tale. But, ultimately, a challenge, a drama of domestic violence. In fact, during the final credits, there is website information for any of the audience disturbed by the theme and the treatment.
The cinema staff member who gave me my ticket told me she had read the novel and was very much looking forward to seeing the film. The novel written and self-published in 2016 by Colleen Hoover, indicating that aspects of the plot were influenced by her parents’ experience, the book became a “must-read” when promoted on social media, especially on Tik-Tok. Then the author found a publisher and further novels. And a readership of millions.
And, now, It Ends with Us has become a box office success, $150 million in two weeks and not just in the United States, very popular in Australia.
This is a film very much geared towards the female audience. But, it also targets the male audience, challenging both. So, the female audience identifies with the central character who plans to open a flower shop in Boston – with her not so subtle name of Lily Blossom Bloom! Her father has died, something of a local celebrity in his small Maine town, her mother wanting her daughter to deliver the funeral eulogy, to find five good things to say about him. She can’t. She doesn’t. She has left the town with memories of parental domestic violence and a happy, sad memories of a long past encounter with a young man, Atlas.
Lily is played by Blake Lively.
After the funeral, quietly reflecting on a rooftop, she watches a rather dashing type, thinking himself alone, indulging in a temper tantrum. They talk. She can’t believe he is a neurosurgeon, Ryle, and at first, neither can we. But he is.
There follows a story of growing friendship that gradually transforms into love. Some have found this part of the film too glossy, but it is nicely pleasant entertainment, Lily and some reconciliation with her mother, finding a best friend in Ryle’s sister (Jenny Slate). Ryle is played by Justin Baldoni who directed the film.
Then, sudden alarming situations arise, drama, melodrama, domestic violence, physical, psychological, apologies, failure, all complicated by pregnancy, birth, mother and child.
There have been different perspectives voiced by critics and audiences, too soft on the one hand or very important on the other. But, for an Australian audience in 2024, the statistics on cases this year of men killing women in domestic violence is alarmingly large, averaging a death a week.
It Ends with Us brings these stories to popular attention – and challenge.
Published: 23 August 2024
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