It Ends With Us (film).
Okay, so I wanted to see It Ends With Us because I knew it was being adapted into a movie and I was aware of all of the hubbub around Colleen Hoover, but I was kind of snobby around ~literariness~ and ~language~ so I didn’t think I could make it through the book. I say was kind of snobby instead of am kind of snobby because recently, I’ve been on the A Court of Thorns and Roses train, and as much as I was kind of brought up through my MFA to appreciate literary fiction above everything else, and as much as I do still love literary fiction more than anything, there is something to be said about prioritizing plot over language. (There are reasons why genre books have these massive excited followings that literary fiction rarely is able to rally up for itself. Also, just because a book isn’t literary fiction doesn’t mean it’s not well written?) Anyway, I was a snob, and so I couldn’t give the book a try, but I was excited for the movie because—not a filmmaker—I find myself very open to all levels of quality when it comes to movies and TV.
I was ready to see It Ends with Us, but then all of the hooplah came out about how the people involved in the film weren’t really addressing that this was a movie about abuse in their promo, and I got the sense that the adaptation was going to fumble that aspect of the story. I couldn’t really get myself in a mood to see a poorly handled film about relationship abuse, or I guess I figured it would be heavy in a way that I wasn’t really in a place to handle, so I skipped seeing it in the theatre. But then it was on Netflix, and I figured, unlike in the movies, if I didn’t like it, I could just turn it off, watch something else instead. I didn’t have sit and bear it or make a major statement by walking out—I could just turn it off, so I sat on the couch and gave it a try.
When I was watching it, I thought about how it’s kind of a problem that the Internet deems something unworthy of our attention without thoroughly assessing it first. I was about to not see this movie because of hearsay, and then I watched it, and it was one of the most impactful things I’ve seen this year (granted, this year just started, but still!). It is a Hollywood film and so has its prescribed story arcs and dramatic moments and all of that, but I guess what made it so interesting to me, why I loved it, is because it was able to tell a complicated story about being in love with someone who hurts you. It wasn’t heavy on the abuse—it wasn’t indulgent, it wasn’t trauma porn, which is what I was afraid of—and yet it didn’t fumble or neglect the subject. The whole film orbited around abuse in a way that felt very human and careful. The movie asked questions like how much loyalty do we owe to our families and to family structures, and how do we explain abuse to others—what do we mean when we say something was an accident, and how does that idea even come about, that someone accidentally, say, shoved you to the ground?
The film and presumably the book it’s based on was able to strike this balance of being vulnerable and being empowered, being open to loving others and choosing self-love, without ever coming across as cheesy or as untenable in the real world. I don’t know, I just—I think it was well-done, and I think it was meaningful, and I think at the end of the day Internet haters are gonna hate, and they’re gonna hate before they even really watch something, and they’re gonna hate so loudly that they will convince other people not to go see what they think for themselves.
Without giving too much away, I especially liked Jenny Slate’s role in the film and Hasan Minhaj’s character, how they both bring comedic relief without being presented as stupid or irrelevant to the plot (which happens a lot, I think, to comedic side characters). I liked how the main character, played by Blake Lively, had other stuff going on—how this romantic relationship she’s in isn’t made central the whole film like a rom com, but is one of many moving parts. I know there’s some major drama with Justin Baldoni, and I could definitely see how that’s possible, as it seems sort of fraught to be both the director in a film and play the abuser, like maybe there aren’t enough checks and balances if you’re in both positions, but Blake Lively—despite everything going on offset—embodied her character with a presence that I appreciated. The sort of go-with-the-flow vibe most of the characters she plays seem to have was both present here and troubled in a way that was well-done.
I don’t know, I think despite all of the drama, it’s worth giving it a watch if you’re curious, especially because it’s important to talk about abuse in romantic relationships, to make people feel not alone if they’re going through it, because it happens all the time, and sometimes, you don’t know what you’re getting into until you’re in the depths of it. The more we see it, the more we might be able to call it out and know what to look for and how to better look out for the people around us. The more aware we’re made of things that aren’t right, the better our chances, maybe, of all finding the kind of love that arrives sometimes when you finally choose yourself, the kind of love that makes you feel like you’ve finally made it home.
…
Another great example of normalizing calling out abuse/not standing for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX-S0qbxynM
Also, PLZ go see One of Them Days—I watched it after I’d already written about It Ends with Us, but what a bop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5xzjw_0d_0
Image: Sony Pictures
