‘It Ends With Us’–Or Does It?

When last I came to you with a movie review, the year was 2020 and everyone was more or less obsessing over a Polish softcore porno playing on Netflix. Fast forward four years: the pandemic is over, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller It Ends With Us is giving the obvious summer blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine a run for its money, and I need to know why America is so very hooked on rom-drams right now.

Is it because people have given up hope of ever being in actually romantic relationships? Because folks conflate drama with meaning? Or because men will never, ever, ever go to therapy, even if they work in the medical field and deal with trauma on a daily basis?

At the risk of incurring the everlasting wrath of the CoHo tribe, I went into this film with low expectations. Indeed, I fully expected to loathe it, and was screaming “Girl, NO!” in my mind from the first moment the sexy-but-obviously-dangerous Ryle appeared onscreen, violently kicking an innocent patio chair.

This movie opens with a funeral where a daughter walks out of her own father’s eulogy because she cannot think of even one nice thing to say about him. Romance? Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

So, let’s get this out of the way up front (with oh-so-many spoilers, because we really can’t discuss this movie without them): the fact that they’re selling this story of an abusive relationship–based on the author’s parents’ real relationship– as a genre romance is, for me, a hard pass.

And yet I didn’t hate it! I felt real emotional sadness for Lily Blossom Bloom! (Seriously, though, why is her name such a fucking joke, repeated so many times?!) But it’s still not a romance, in the same way that Romeo and Juliet is not a romance. If there’s no happy ending for the couple, your story is not a romance. This is nonnegotiable.

I am a stickler for the Happy Ending (or Happy For Now, at the very least), because if there’s no couple together at the end of your so-called romance – not to mention the fact that the “hero” in this story literally throws the heroine down a flight of stairs, sews up her wounds, and then demands she tell him everything’s fine – then how is this a fantasy for anyone and not a horror story?

Folks might argue that the hero is hot and rich and capable as a neurosurgeon, and that he’s totally obsessed with the heroine, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also an abusive asshole–just like the “hero” in 365 Days. The tipping point for this particular heroine is that her husband tries to rape her, while saying “I just haven’t shown you how much I love you.”

She should never have married this mofo, because he threw her down a flight of stairs AND attempted to beat up her first love in a jealous rage before any talk of marriage occurred. Did she not see the red flags, or was she just rationalizing them all away? We don’t get any internal monologues (or even any revealing chats with friends or family) from Lily, so it’s hard to say, but she stays with her abuser until this moment, and none of that is romantic.

Naturally, as soon as Lily flees from her rapist husband, that’s when she finds out she’s pregnant with his baby. Can we just admit that this is a horrible relationship by any measure? That even the good times can’t hide the fact that this guy told her from the start that he “doesn’t do” relationships? And for good reason: it turns out he murdered his brother with a gun at age six and hasn’t improved on his violent temper ever since!

Now, despite the fact that this is not, nor will it ever be a romance, I do think It Ends With Us provides some interesting takes on some of the romantic tropes that we all know and love. The one I most enjoyed seeing turned upside down was the fact that Lily actually leaves her abuser in the end. Unfortunately, most genre romances that involve domestic abuse end up leaving the poor woman stranded in her terrible relationship, either because she “loves him too much” or because of pressure from family and/or friends.

Thankfully, the movie nopes the hell out of that scenario, thanks to an excellent performance from Jenny Slate, who tells Lily Blossom Bloom that as the sister of her abuser, she hopes she can forgive him, but as her best friend, she will absolutely never speak to her again if she doesn’t leave him. Thank you, Jenny Slate, for being the voice of reason here! Lily hugs her, they cry, and Lily actually takes her friend/sister-in-law’s advice and asks her abuser for a divorce.

In the hospital. While he’s holding their baby. Because, hello, this is the only place she knows she will be safe if he tries to hurt either of them.

This is the smartest thing Lily Blossom Bloom does in this entire film. And, delivered without any tears or lip quivering whatsoever, she asks Ryle what he would do if this newborn baby, his baby girl, ever came to him and told him that her boyfriend hit her. He gets it, he leaves the room with tears falling, but he doesn’t lash out. Because if he did, he’d lose his family AND his job.

Can you be attracted to someone abusive? Duh! We’ve all done it. Our society basically grooms women to love abusers through the ever-present Bad Boy trope. We want the wild side, but we never actually punish men when they cross the lines that no one is ever supposed to cross. And, more frustrating, when they cross very explicit boundaries, we make excuses for them. That Lily does finally stop making excuses for Ryle, and for herself, is what surprised me about this film.

Lily struggles with the idea that she is turning into her mother by staying in a relationship where she knows her husband is abusive and clearly continues to hurt her more and more as time goes on. But ultimately, as the title indicates, it ends with “us”: Lily and her newborn baby girl. She makes the decision to leave because of her baby.

But wouldn’t a better answer here have been to have an abortion and walk away from this bad marriage without any additional people involved? Because the cycle of abuse is going to continue if she’s going to allow Ryle to have anything to do with this baby. Just because she divorces Ryle doesn’t mean he won’t have access to his child, and child custody battles can easily turn into platforms for psychological abuse. So does it really end with us, or is this entire film just the prelude to what everybody wanted to see: the second-chance romance with Atlas, the First Love who aids Lily as she flees from Ryle?

I guess we’ll have to wait for the sequel.