To understand the new Blake Lively-starring romantic melodrama “It Ends With Us” is to understand that it exists in context: in the context of the long tradition of the “women’s picture,” and the current landscape of the publishing industry, which is dominated by female authors and consumers. This understanding explains the film’s existence, as it serves an audience that is often overlooked in today’s film market, and sports extensive name recognition. Adapted for the screen by Christy Hall, the source text of “It Ends With Us,” is the massively successful 2016 novel by Colleen Hoover, an author who started out self-publishing her own books.
They became so popular on Kindle Unlimited that she made it to the New York Times bestseller list on her own before she was picked up by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. “It Ends With Us” is a cathartic personal story for Hoover, based on family experience, about a woman, Lily (played in the film by Lively) overcoming a cycle of domestic abuse, which she witnessed in her parents’ marriage and later experiences herself in a toxic relationship. The story follows Lily (last name Bloom, yes it is acknowledged), a young woman living in Boston, who has dreams of opening up her own flower shop (yes, it is called “Lily Bloom’s”).
The film opens at the funeral of her father (Kevin McKidd) at which Lily struggles to name even a few things she loved and respected about him. While processing her complex feeli.
