Witnessing her father’s abuse as a teenager, Lily Bloom moves from Maine to Boston to begin her new life as a florist. But will her past come back to create a continuous cycle of love and pain?
From the bestselling author Colleen Hoover, who has so far written 27 successful novels to date including the direct follow up “It Starts with Us”, comes one of the most talked about books in 2020 trending on TikTok in with 1 billion #tags. Published 2nd August 2016 (8 years ago to the date of theatrical release) and optioned in 2019 by actor and director Justin Baldoni, “It Ends with Us” centres on three older characters of Atlas, played by Brandon Sklenar, Ryle Kincaid played by Justin Baldoni and of course Lily Bloom by Blake Lively who was the first to be cast as recently as January 2023 with her fellow actors quickly coming on board within jus a few weeks.
Based on the real-life relationship between her mother and father, Hoover described it as the hardest book she’d ever written. Placing pen to paper, Colleen laid her heart on the line for the world to see in what has become her greatest achievement selling several million copies worldwide to date which will surely now rise even further as the worldwide cinema box office looks to break the healthy $100m within its second week of opening.
There are two lots of people who will watch this film, those who have read the book and those who have not. I am in the latter camp having personally not heard of this until the trailers this year so I shall base this mainly on the film. Going in quite sceptical to the viewing, my thoughts were mostly if not entirely put to rest with what is a beautifully made and well-cast film that centres on the main roles without veering too far off the beaten track of needless lines and pointless characters.
Bouncing between two distinct timelines of Lily as a naïve 15-year-old Maine college girl helplessly witnessing her father’s abuse of her mother and then meeting a ‘lost’ soul in young Atlas, and also in her mid-30’s in her Boston era of her momentarily happier entrepreneurial floral business, the story moves with some pace yet also takes its time to bring to life the joy and pain of joyful yet also of toxic relationships. Lily Bloom is the centre piece protagonist to which the entire movie rotates and shows the character arc of the initially innocent through to the older and caring then ultimately someone mentally far stronger than her mother.
Casting Lily’s role of the 15-year-old, Blake simply couldn’t believe her luck when she found actress Isabela Ferrer – 23 at the time of filming – to play the young Lily Bloom with her amazing personality similarities through to her almost matching mole to the right of her nose to the point I actually wondered if there was CGI being used (it had not). The jarring visual differences however came with the roles of younger and older Atlas played by Alex Neustaedter and Brandon Sklenar respectively although their individual compassion felt true to each age.
The visuals of the beautiful Boston loft apartments of Ryle and of his sister Allysa played by Jenny Slate, (voice artist in Despicable Me 3 and Lego Batman) and of Atlas’ ‘Roots’ restaurant portray the stunning highs to which the emotional lows are deep and well-acted with Blake anchoring the film with most surely an award nod early next year.
Hoover at the time of writing had not realised neurosurgeons were not typically in their mid-twenties so required changing and that is why eventually producer Blake Lively was cast to match Justin Baldoni who also directed this. The movie direction did however cause filming issues where Blake and Baldoni clashed as she felt his character was becoming too chauvinistic.
With a soundtrack that is front and centre, several standout namely Taylor Swift’s ‘My Tears Ricochet’, ‘Skinny Love’ by Birdy but Lana Del Rey’s ‘Cherry’ felt too much too early in the film according to the producers as we are introduced to Ryle. Thankfully making the cut however the music works extremely well.
The story in itself is quite simple being set in Maine then Boston for the two timelines whilst also being intricate and well directed yet the on screen does not suffer from dead time and therefore works. With the romantic love triangle ‘It ends with us’ is the journey of Lily and her hope to find someone true to heart and strong though most defiantly not her father’s character type. ‘It starts with us’ will surely now be in the thoughts of Blake and co and with certain cast differences apart they ideally cast the same people for continuity and completion.
Seeing this film grow quite rightly in popularity in the cinemas very quickly is testament to a deeper more profound love story that stands out from the also-rans. Do pay attention to the car makeup scene.
Author: Piers, Maidstone Store
