‘It Ends With Us’ Claims to Be About Breaking the Cycle of Abuse…But Doesn’t

Warning: Spoilers below.

If you’ve read Colleen Hoover’s polarizing 2016 novel, It Ends With Us, you know that flowers (more specifically, lilies) are a crucial plot point. Not only are they the protagonist’s namesake (full name: Lily Blossom Bloom), but they’re also the novel’s principal bungled metaphor for growth despite one’s roots being stuck in bad soil. And at an advance screening of the film adaption in Toledo, Ohio, lilies are deployed as a marketing gimmick, handed out to movie-going CoHorts and CoCritics such as myself in the form of a cheap iron-on patch reminiscent of a Girl Scout badge.

Made exhaustively evident by a recent series of florid frocks, Blake Lively stars as Lily, a florist who fled an abusive home only to find herself in another. Try as I might’ve back when It Ends With Us first hit shelves, I am not a Colleen Hoover fan. To be clear, it’s not that I’m in any way above a Target best-seller, it’s just that I had to quit the controversial author‘s debut novel long before the end because I found its narrative about intergenerational trauma and the cycle of abuse to be, well, trite. However, I’m also a masochist and there’s little to do in my hometown but hard labor and harder drinking. So, on Wednesday, I went where Nicole Kidman has never been before: The Cinemark at my local mall.

The film—as touted by Hoover herself in recent interviews—is “a faithful adaptation” of the novel, which is to say that my criticism remains largely the same. Only, once on the big screen, I felt it was contradictory and utterly unconscious of the confines of reality. Basically, it’s just a big-budget Lifetime movie with a bottom line that could’ve been heard onstage at this year’s Republican National Convention thanks to its father-induced trauma, flat humor, and perplexing framing of domestic violence.

When audiences first meet a 20-something Bloom, she’s just lost her father. And his abuse and rape of her mother throughout her upbringing made him so justifiably detestable to her that she refused to eulogize him at his funeral. Shortly after Bloom flees her hometown to Boston, a chance encounter unites her with another abuser, Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni)—only this one is a wealthy neurosurgeon and devastatingly handsome. Despite the fact that their introduction involves violence (she first lays eyes on him as he kicks at patio furniture), she’s intrigued. Soon, another chance encounter draws them closer, and a lengthy montage of their courtship plays like the start of an over-stylized romcom complete with confounding close-up shots of crystal-embellished stilettos, kissing on kitchen countertops, and corny needle drops from Taylor Swift and Birdie. Those who haven’t read the book or who only watched the trailer would think they’re in for a few hours of very shiny schmaltz. Hell, if they’re easily impressed they’re probably even sold on Kincaid’s apparent wonderfulness.

That is, until he—in order of events—hits Bloom “by accident,” pushes her down the stairs during an argument about the sudden resurgence of her first love, and finally, attempts to rape her, leaving bite marks that warrant a tetanus shot. Oh, and did I mention she’s pregnant with his child? Voila! She’s inadvertently repeated the cycle of abuse. The remainder of the film—about 25 minutes—is her attempt at reclamation by virtue of becoming a mother and ultimately doing what hers should’ve done: leave her abuser. And miraculously, Kincaid goes along with it all…after he weeps about his own familial strife.

“It ends with us,” she promises her newborn baby girl. End scene. Then, there’s a galling shot of Bloom introducing her baby to her dead father’s grave…the same dead father who she witnessed raping her mother. By the time the credits rolled, I was immediately plagued by the following questions:

First, is “breaking the cycle” really having your abuser’s child? I understand that a woman from a conservative farm town in Texas wrote this, but I find it difficult to believe that abortion isn’t even discussed as an option for this character—a millennial living in Boston. Reproductive choice aside, Bloom doesn’t even consult a lawyer? Or consider a restraining order? When there’s zero evidence that Kincaid is seeking professional help, or committing himself—in literally any way—to ensuring his child is never impacted by his behavior? How is she to trust that he won’t become violent again? And how is an audience supposed to feel good about the fact this woman is tethering herself to someone who not only hit her but attempted to rape her? In this political clime? With this country’s father-favoring court systems and all the statistics that would encourage otherwise? To advance Hoover’s metaphor, these roots just seem too rotted to be redeemed.

Reviews from the audience—a half-full auditorium of mothers and daughters, 20-somethings and their boyfriends, and gaggles of teenagers made giddy each and every time Baldoni removed his shirt—varied. For every exclamation of an “I loved it,” there was an “I hated that” or, worse yet, bemused laughter at the Razzie-level acting.

Ultimately, it’s no mystery why It Ends With Us feels like a film with an identity crisis. When adapting a book that wants to be both a romance and an epic about one domestic violence survivor’s commitment to personal evolution, I imagine it’s impossible to end up with a film that doesn’t really achieve either. Its gravest sin, however, is that it doesn’t portray a broken cycle of abuse at all. In fact, whether Hoover meant it to be or not, the takeaway seemed more akin to “it’s right to forgive abusers because they have trauma, too.” Further evidence of this appears in the book’s conclusion (Bloom and Kincaid share custody of their daughter) and perhaps most notably, its dedication: “For my father, who tried his very best not to be his worst.”

If she’s found peace in that ideology, I’m happy for Hoover and whomever else is comforted by it. But if you’ve outgrown art that encourages empathy for men’s attempts not to be their worst, you’ll walk away hoping Hoover will soon cultivate some new soil.