Wendy Ide 

It Ends With Us review – Blake Lively stars in oddly frothy domestic abuse drama

Dark themes lurk behind the stylish veneer in this adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller, directed by co-star Justin Baldoni
  
  

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends With Us.
‘Seemingly perfect’: Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends With Us. Photograph: Nicole Rivelli/AP

The blockbuster 2016 novel by Colleen Hoover is given a glossy, impeccably groomed Hollywood treatment in this melodrama starring Blake Lively. She plays Lily Bloom, a visionary florist with a thriving business in Boston, an enviable Carrie Bradshaw-adjacent wardrobe and a ridiculously attractive brain surgeon boyfriend (a frequently shirtless Justin Baldoni, who also directs).

For a film that dips its Manolo-clad toe into the murky waters of domestic abuse, it’s unexpectedly aspirational, almost frothy in tone. But perhaps that’s the point the film is labouring: spousal violence in a relationship is rarely broadcast to the wider world. Friends and family might be oblivious to the warning signs in a seemingly perfect partnership; even the victim can remain in denial.

In Lily’s case, a childhood front-row seat witnessing her father’s brutality against her mother sensitises her to the pattern of violence in her own relationship. But even so, it takes the intervention of a former boyfriend, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), before she realises the gravity of her situation.

  • In UK and Irish cinemas

Watch a trailer for It Ends With Us.
 

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