Movie Review

Blake Lively fights domestic abuse in book adaptation It Ends With Us

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in It Ends with Us.

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

The film adaptation of It Ends With Us, based on the 2016 Colleen Hoover book that re-emerged as a bestseller in 2021, has to walk a tricky line. Like the book, it has to depict cycles of domestic abuse for its protagonist, Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), while also delivering a decent amount of romance so that audiences can comprehend why she would be with the abuser in the first place.

Director Justin Baldoni and writer Christy Hall accomplish this by inserting a little filmmaking subterfuge and keeping things relatively light for most of the film’s running time. We meet Lily as she returns to her hometown in Maine for the funeral of her father (Andrew McKidd), who abused her mother (Amy Morton) throughout her childhood. When she goes back to her current home in Boston, an impromptu visit to a high-rise rooftop leads to a chance meeting with Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni), a temperamental neurosurgeon.

The budding relationship, spurred on by Ryle’s sister Allysa (Jenny Slate) and brother-in-law Marshall (Hasan Minhaj), brings up memories for Lily (played in flashbacks by Isabela Ferrer) of her first big relationship with Atlas (Alex Neustaedter), who experienced similar domestic trauma. While she and Ryle seem to have a healthy bond, flashes of anger from Ryle start to make Lily wonder if she can ever remove herself from the abuse cycle.

Although the pain Lily has experienced from a young age is apparent from the start of the film, Baldoni and Hall soft-pedal scenes featuring abuse for storytelling reasons and, likely, to get a PG-13 rating. In fact, much effort is spent on romanticizing Lily’s relationship with the ultra-handsome Ryle and her teenage bond with Atlas. When Atlas reappears in her life as an adult (played by Brandon Sklenar), it even appears that the story might go down the love-triangle route.

Slowly but surely the abuse starts to creep in, although Baldoni and his team couch it in an interesting storytelling gambit. Scenes where Ryle lashes out are initially shown to be ambiguous in nature, making it unclear exactly what happened. The filmmakers seem to be trying to put the audience in the muddled mindset of Lily, who can’t seem to reconcile the fun and loving person Ryle is most of the time with the occasions when he flies off the handle.

The serious parts of the film are balanced out by the presence of Allysa and Marshall, played by comic actors Slate and Minhaj, who bring a certain type of levity just by appearing on screen. Even though the side characters don’t add much substance to the story overall, they make for good sounding boards for Lily and Ryle, and act as emotional surrogates for the audience in certain scenes.

Lively has had a checkered film history over the years, but she proves here that she’s a strong performer who adds value to a nuanced role like this one. It’s interesting that Baldoni chose to cast himself in a somewhat unsavory part, but he has the looks and acting chops to pull it off ably. Also strong are Sklenar, who doesn’t overplay Atlas’ emotions, and Ferrer, who makes for a nice Lively doppelgänger in addition to being a good actor.

The serious message of It Ends With Us may not be fully served by its relatively muted storytelling, but Baldoni and Hall justify their approach in a series of small ways that add up a satisfying whole. Like other films of this ilk, if it can help even one person who may be stuck in a similar situation see the light, it will have done its job.

---

It Ends With Us opens in theaters on August 9.

movies film reviews

Movie Review

Lust eclipses romance in new adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights'

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights.

Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights is one of those classic books assigned in high school English classes, and it has received a number of film adaptations over the years, each of which differ in numerous ways from the source material. Purists won’t receive any reprieve from Emerald Fennell’s 2026 adaptation, with a title that is stylized as "Wuthering Heights” for good reason.

Cathy (played as an adult by Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) have known each other their entire lives, with Cathy’s alcoholic and inveterate gambler father (Martin Clunes) taking in Heathcliff on a whim when he was a boy. The two bond as they grow up together, although Cathy always seems to have an eye on moving up in society from their relatively impoverished lifestyle.

Cathy finally gets her wish when the rich Linton familyled by Edgar (Shazad Latif), moves in down the road, Despite discovering she has feelings for the now grown-up Heathcliff, Cathy sees Edgar as her way out and agrees to marry him. A scorned Heathcliff flees, returning years later as mysteriously wealthy. His reappearance ignites something in Cathy’s soul, and the two engage in a perhaps unwise affair.

Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) infuses the dusty material with an energy that’s not typically present in stories set in this particular time and place. Aside from the occasional Charli XCX song (the singer created a whole concept album for the film), the film looks and feels like a period piece, albeit one that doesn’t get bogged down in the drudgery that can sometimes come from films set in the distant past.

Much of that has to do with the lust the filmmaker puts into the story. Even if you’re not familiar with Brontë’s book, you can rest assured that Fennell has strayed far from the text, giving Cathy and Heathcliff thoughts and actions unthinkable in the 19th century. Fennell plays with expectations by opening the film with audio featuring creaking noises and a man grunting, conjuring up a situation far different than what is actually happening, and she also makes liberal use of rain, sweat, and tears to make the actors enticing.

What she can’t do, however, is make the two lead characters compelling. Cathy is a striver who never seems to know what she wants out of life, and Heathcliff goes from a bore to a brute over the course of the film, with no clear indication that he likes anybody, much less Cathy. Anyone expecting some kind of grand romance will be disappointed as Fennell is much more interested in making the film weird, like having the walls of Cathy’s room look like her skin, complete with freckles.

Robbie and Elordi do well enough with the material, and it’s clear that both of them are committed to bringing Fennell’s vision to life. Their styles tend to balance each other out, and if the story had been committed to their characters’ relationship, they might be lauded for their chemistry. In the end, though, the supporting actors feel more interesting, including ones played by Hong Chau, Alison Miller, and Clunes.

This version of Wuthering Heights should never be construed as an alternative to reading the book for any high schoolers out there. While Fennell makes the film interesting with her technical filmmaking choices, the story never finds its footing as it fails to sell the one thing that it seems to promise.

---

Wuthering Heights opens in theaters on February 13.

movies film