Justin Baldoni directs and stars alongside Blake Lively in “It Ends With Us.” Photo by Nicole Rivelli/Sony Pictures Entertainment Millions of readers swooned over Colleen Hoover’s thorny romance “It Ends With Us,” the No. 1 bestselling novel of 2022 and 2023.
They’ll come prepared for the clobbering heartbreak – and will hopefully pack an extra hankie for any nonfans entering the movie theater as blank as if they’re on a blind date. The film version, helmed by Justin Baldoni (the director of “Five Feet Apart” and the leading love interest of TV’s “Jane the Virgin”) and adapted for the screen by Christy Hall (“Daddio”), is an unwieldy yet compelling fusion of glittery fantasy and traumatic introspection. Our heroine is the flamboyantly named Lily Blossom Bloom (Blake Lively), a salty, funny Bostonian with her own (what else?) flower shop.
Her beau, Ryle (Baldoni), boasts the résumé and abs of a 21st-century Prince Charming. A wealthy neurosurgeon, Ryle swears that Lily is the only woman who can heal his own damaged heart. He’s also the brother of her best friend and employee, Allysa (Jenny Slate).
And did I mention the abs? Jenny Slate plays Allysa, best friend and employee of Lily (Blake Lively), in “It Ends With Us.” Photo by Jojo Whilden/Sony Pictures Entertainment But Lily can’t stop thinking about a lonely, physically scarred high school boy she once knew in a small Maine town where her father (Kevin McKidd) was the mayor and her .