Following the New York premiere of "It Ends With Us" on Tuesday evening, the initial reviews from critics have been rolling in, showing a range of opinions.
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| 'It Ends With Us' Nicole Rivelli/Sony Pictures |
The romantic drama, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s 2016 best-selling novel, is directed by Justin Baldoni, who also stars as Ryle. The film centers on Lily (Blake Lively), who, after a traumatic childhood, sets out to build a new life.
However, her romantic involvement with neurosurgeon Ryle reveals troubling similarities to her parents’ abusive relationship. The reappearance of someone from her past, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), further complicates matters, forcing Lily to find her own strength to move forward.
The film has previously faced criticism for its portrayal of domestic violence, with some fans alleging it romanticizes the issue. However, a common thread among the early reviews is that, while the movie adaptation handles the topic of domestic violence with sensitivity, the overall narrative seems to falter.
As of Wednesday afternoon, "It Ends With Us" held a score of 59 percent from 39 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and 51 percent on Metacritic from 20 reviews.
The Sony Pictures film, set to release in theaters on Friday, also features Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Isabela Ferrer, and Alex Neustaedter.
Read on for key excerpts from some of the most notable early reviews following the premiere of "It Ends With Us."
The Morfeli Reporter’s arts and culture critic, Lovia Gyarkye, commented in her review, “The pat treatment of these characters ultimately does a disservice to the broader themes embedded in It Ends With Us. Without understanding more of Lily’s broader community or getting a stronger sense of how she navigates the relationship with Ryle, the film can feel too light and wispy to support the weight of its themes.”
The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee observed, “It’s a plot of hackneyed soap tropes but there’s a real maturity to how it unfolds, a story of abuse that’s far less obvious than we’ve grown accustomed to, the details far knottier than some might be comfortable with. There are expected cliches but there are also many that are mercifully avoided too, the story not always conforming to type.”
“The life lessons being taught here about self-acceptance, self-love, and self-worth might be a little pat and some of the darker elements could have afforded a tad more darkness, but It Ends with Us leads with heart first, everything else later,” Lee added in his review. “It’s a film of huge, sometimes hugely unsubtle, emotion but it has an effectively forceful sweep to it.”
“It Ends With Us savors the trappings of a glossy love triangle: the banter, the flirting, the turbulence, the extravagant costumes,” wrote Amy Nicholson of The Washington Post. “The movie has to cheat a bit to get at the complexity of Hoover’s book.
A child of domestic abuse, Hoover writes with painful intimacy about Lily’s struggle to claw free from her past. Baldoni shifts some of that turmoil to the audience, with editors Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan cutting key scenes so that, like Lily, we don’t know what to believe.”
Nicholson added that “even bouncing off male leads who are more pinball bumpers than dimensional characters,” Lively gave a “great performance as a headstrong, sensible woman who struggles to consider herself a victim.”
Critic Mark Kennedy wrote in his review for the Associated Press that “the uneven movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling 2016 novel” tries to “balance the realities of domestic violence inside a rom-com and a female-empowerment movie. All suffer in the process.”
“It veers too close to melodrama, with suicide, homelessness, generational trauma, child murder, unintended pregnancy and never-forgotten love all touched on and only half digested,” Kennedy continued. “Set in Boston, it never even pulls from that city’s flavor.”
Time film critic Stephanie Zacharek remarked, “The movie captures the harsh reality that for many abused women, you don't know the extent of the situation until it's too late. However, that alone doesn't make the film convincing.”
She continued, “The issue is that It Ends With Us is solely focused on its theme, lacking additional depth. The characters are crafted to highlight the subtle nature of domestic violence and how its effects can sneak up even as victims hide behind denial. That’s a significant burden for any film. But movies need to move us in more nuanced ways, not just deliver emotions efficiently. It Ends With Us makes its points clearly, but it feels more educational than emotionally impactful.”
In her review for IndieWire, Proma Khosla noted that the film “tackles its sensitive subject matter with care, though this often comes at the expense of a more complex storyline.”
“It Ends With Us succeeds in its primary goal, which mirrors the appeal of Hoover’s book, by emphasizing the cycles of abuse, trauma, and silence central to this narrative,” Khosla wrote. “Baldoni and Hall treat Lily and her surroundings with compassion, often simplifying difficult aspects to minimize risk and shield the audience, leaving room for deeper exploration in a potential sequel.”
Esther Zuckerman of Rolling Stone commented, “The movie is as lighthearted as it is dramatic, balancing romance with trauma. Over its more than two-hour runtime, It Ends With Us remains true to its origins as a popular, easy-read novel. This blend of tones doesn’t always succeed but evokes a nostalgic feel for an era when mid-budget films that tackled serious issues were viable. (Think: White Oleander, Where the Heart Is.)
In that respect, it’s a triumph, even if some viewers resistant to sentimental plots might find themselves rolling their eyes at the emotional highs and lows of the story.”
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