[ad_1]
This news has been read 93 times!
Lily Bloom and Lyle Kincaid don’t meet on the best of terms. He announces himself by angrily kicking a patio chair on a Boston rooftop, where she struggles to come to terms with the death of her abusive father. They talk cherry wine, gun violence, and flirt. Something is off about this couple. But there’s also a palpable attraction. And so begins the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 bestselling novel It Ends With Us, starring Blake Lively, that attempts to balance the realities of domestic violence in a romantic comedy and female empowerment film. In the process, everyone suffers.
The film veers too close to melodrama, with its take on suicide, homelessness, generational trauma, child murder, unwanted pregnancy and a love that never ends, but only halfway gets told. It’s set in Boston, but never quite gets into the flavor of the city. The film centers on Lively’s Lily, a flower shop owner caught in a complicated love triangle with handsome neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni, who also directed) and her handsome high school sweetheart Atlas, played endearingly and pathetically by Brandon Sklenar.
There were red flags about Lyle, but they only became apparent when the chain of events was connected, which took years. Kudos to the filmmakers for not letting a potential abuser wave them around so easily. What’s most powerful about It Ends With Us is the aftereffects of domestic violence, and how they unsettle those who witness or survive it. That could have been tighter or more prominent. (End credits direct viewers to the anti-domestic violence group No More.) Baldoni perfectly balances menace and seduction, walking the line between confident and unhinged. He’s a good director, summarizing scenes quickly and advancing the plot gracefully, though he does favor a few too many music-driven montages. Lively is fine here, with her lovely floral sketches and love of shabby chic edging close to Pixie Dream Girls but perking up at the end. She wears lots of rings and flowers, but can also wow a room in a cutout dress.
Christy Hall’s script has some quirks—at one point, someone says “this man goes through women like candy”—but deftly handles the book’s oddities, like turning Lily’s father’s funeral into a flashback rather than a weird reenactment on the rooftop. But “It’s Over” doesn’t wrap up fast enough—it drags on for more than two hours—and is riddled with digressions and poor editing, like abrupt scene cuts that leave the audience searching for clues as to where they are. We have questions, like how Lively’s character got to the rooftop of that fancy high-rise in the first place. How is Lily’s best friend, Jenny Slate, clearly stealing the show? She’s wearing a Valentino dress and carrying a bag that costs as much as a small car? She works in a florist’s shop when she clearly doesn’t need a retail job? And what’s with the weird relationship with Carhartt—check out the parody logo that pops and pops on jackets and jumpsuits—clearly meant to portray the wearer as down-to-earth, working-class, but isn’t. The film’s worship of wealth and luxury – from Mercedes Benz to million-dollar apartments and fancy dinner reservations – is, I suppose, an attempt to show that domestic violence is not confined to sports bars and factories. Interestingly enough, Lily apparently has her own type: both of her lovers are dark-haired bodybuilders who like tight black T-shirts and have stubble and adore her.
When they argue — and they do — it’s actually hard to tell them apart. A stirring soundtrack — including Thom Yorke’s “Dawn Chorus,” Lewis Capaldi’s “Love the Hell Out of You” and Brittany Howard’s “I Don’t” — makes it undeniable the presence of Lily’s bestie Taylor Swift, who lends her “My Tears Ricochet.” When Lily and Lyle finally hook up for the first time, she warns him: “Don’t make me regret this.” Of course, she will. And so will several of the film’s other actors. By Mark Kennedy
This news has been read 93 times!
[ad_2]
Source link
