Is Courtship Dead? (Part V)
Why All the Drama For 'It Ends with Us'?
Dearest Reader,
I decided I needed a holiday after 8 months straight of weekly writing and working through the political rollercoaster of the past few weeks. I may share something from the archives of my published work next week, to get some remaining summer rest before September. In the future I may share other published work when I need rest or to attend to life’s occasional detours. I have been thinking a lot about self-care, which I needed recently. But in so doing, I went to my tabernacle, the cinema, to see what was cooking. I saw several pictures that I may write about, but first, I want to explore the film It Ends with Us (2024) based on the New York Times bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover. You may have heard of this film, marketed mostly as a romantic drama. If you have heard about the film, you likely heard or read some gossip about tensions among the cast. I will get into that a bit, but I’m more curious about what a hit film that features a major storyline around intimate partner violence (IPV) says about modern romance. Spoilers ahead.
On a hot Friday evening, I welcomed the cool air of a dark movie theater to watch It Ends with Us (2024), starring Blake Lively (Lily Bloom) and Justin Baldoni (Ryle Kincaid). Baldoni also produces and directs this feature about Lily Bloom, a beautiful free-spirited florist, who hails from an abusive household and unwittingly recreates her childhood circumstances with her neurosurgeon husband, Ryle. First off, the names in this film, carried over from the novel, are peak soap opera energy. Second, a parallel romance is explored, through flashbacks, of Lily’s childhood sweetheart Atlas Corrigan, played by Brandon Sklenar. The film is well composed with a soft, colorful cinematography and a storyline that ably dances between the past and the present. This structure, which I think mimics the book, helps the viewer better understand Lily and provide context for what happens in her adult life.
Released on August 9th, Lively executive produces the film, as well as, playing the female lead. She turns out a grounded, yet lilting performance at Lily Bloom, a woman raised in an abusive home, who loves to nurture things and people. The appeal of the film’s resilient and redemptive portrayal of IPV, built in fanbase, combined with Lively’s real life affluent-mom-girl boss image has yielded a surprise summer hit jockeying for first position domestically, since its release. Lively had a beautifully curated, albeit controversial floral and gay rollout that definitely sold the film, but it also clashed with the IPV subject-matter. The film isn’t entirely about its worst moments, juts like no life is solely about our lowest moments. But some have fairly criticized the contradictory, arguably insensitive juxtaposition of Lively promoting products or sporting light hearted press tour looks for a film with such challenging material amidst its romantic storytelling.
Blake Lively started her career as a young ensemble member on hit series Gossip Girl (2007-2012). Her fame grew with cult classic, empowering teenage drama Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005 and a sequel in 2008. Lively went on to star in The Town (2010), The Green Lantern (2011) opposite her now husband Ryan Reynolds, The Age of Adeline (2015) and A Simple Favor (2018). I’ve seen all but A Simple Favor directed by Paul Fieg who features women leads in all his films. Lively has a somewhat understated performance style, but is nevertheless an interesting actor especially regarding the films she chooses. She’s also a mother and came to It Ends with Us after giving birth to her fourth child just months earlier.
Apparently a lot of the off-screen drama for It Ends with Us centers around discord between Lively and Baldoni, initially because neither were seen together during the press tour. That’s pretty thin evidence of any genuine drama. Nevertheless, Baldoni has been doing most of his press alone while cast work together… which is odd. Also, in response to all the swirling gossip, Baldoni has hired crisis PR expert Melissa Nathan. Now, that doesn’t look great, but it also doesn’t say enough about what is actually going on.
Online speculation is buzzing and even actor Brandon Sklenar felt compelled to issue a public statement in defense of the women behind the film, namely Lively and Hoover, responding to negative, pervasive online chatter (and press). In a thoughtful, but firm letter Sklenar says, “Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about.” Curiouser still, Baldoni who has a public image around feminist masculinity with an attending podcast and production company, was not the one to speak up for his colleagues as director. But then again, maybe that was a strategic choice on the part of the production team to quell rumors, since Baldoni is implicated in the gossip and growing online hostility towards Lively and Hoover.
I can’t get into, nor am I fully enthralled by the drama surrounding this film, but here is an explainer for anyone interested. I just hope nothing unethical happened, but I’m disinclined to think anything majorly dicey happened despite the chill between Lively and Baldoni. Part of me also wonders, having played such intimate yet toxic partners on screen, perhaps distance is warranted. After pandemic era HBO miniseries Scenes from a Marriage aired to uproarious reception, real-life friends and co-leads Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac famously said playing a couple in a dying union definitely created distance between them.
I was relatively unaware of what the film was about when I walked in and I generally think that’s best. I knew that domestic violence featured in the story to some extent, having never read or heard of the book. Apparently “It Ends with Us,” the novel published in 2016, has been wildly popular for years and currently holds the top spot on the Times bestseller list contributing to 131 weeks or about 2.5 years (wowza!) on the list. Nevertheless, I was genuinely surprised by how much IPV was in the film, not gratuitously or overwhelming the storyline, but each incident feels discordant to the romantic tone throughout much of the film. A number of experts and survivors have said It Ends with Us should have a warning about IPV and perhaps it should. There is a domestic violence hotline shown at the end credits, but the marketing and interviews, with the exception of Justin Baldoni, have been woefully inarticulate on domestic violence, IVP, toxic masculinity, etc. But, I get the feeling that even before the film, people had a bone to pick with author Colleen Hoover for making a successful IVP romance novel that is not particularly intellectual or preachy in any way.
I don’t think it’s fair to overly criticize people associated with this film because whether one likes it or not, the film exists and it’s drawing in viewers. I also suspect it was hard to make, regardless of the emotionally sensitive subject matter, being a relatively low-budget film with big personalities. Hoover’s characters have some depth and the film pretty clearly illustrates right from wrong, but there is a fairytale, romance novel energy throughout that kind of keeps everything feeling cinematic and arguably too cinematic for an IVP story.
I’m struck by how It Ends with Us and many other popular books turned feature films have this mixture of physical danger and romance. As much as an It Ends with Us film can be an educational tool about IPV, is that what we walk away with? Perhaps because Lily Bloom does make changes in her life to eliminate IPV from perpetuating in her family…but it still misses certain practical steps and details you’d need to address in real life like trauma therapy or supervised visitation, who knows.
It Ends with Us, according to Hoover is based on her mother’s experience with IVP. Meanwhile other novels turned films like “Twilight” and “50 Shades of Gray” also have menacing male leads, but their violence is never clearly abuse. I always thought it peculiar (and frankly, twisted), that a number of the most popular romance novels and films in recent years have implicitly featured domestic violence and uneven power dynamics that only even out after the lead woman survives something exceedingly violent. I wonder if these works satiate a common desire or reflect a pathology or maybe these toxic love novels are some kind of romance heroine. There is a growing interrogation of what some call romance novel addiction. It’s debatable, but there’s something there.
When I was a kid, the romantic films I favored were features like When Harry Met Sally (1989), Ghost (1990) and The Bodyguard (1992), the bad boy/danger element was still there but the aforementioned had women in relatively powerful positions. Also, even if these films were based on books, the fan bases were not the same back then. Then again, I don’t want to take away from Lily Blooms evolution in It Ends with Us. It’s just that films circa 1990 were more about relatively original storytelling and showcasing soft, human, loving relationships. Whereas today, it feels like romantic characters have more tortured backstories, are increasingly self-aware but serve more of a “utility” amidst darker themes. Sometimes I wish that darkness wasn’t necessary to draw people in (and perhaps it isn’t necessary), but this is the era of serial killer-centered miniseries and numerous doomsday themes. I suppose by laying it out that way, I’ve answered my own question regarding what It Ends with Us says about modern romance—a social media app relationship status of “it’s complicated” and a meme proclaiming “I’m breaking generational cycles.” Come to think of it, that’s very on brand for today.
With Love During End Times,
Agunda