It Ends With Us Divides Critics in First Reviews

Colleen Hoover's books have been taking over TikTok for years. Now, we see the first adaptation of one of her novels, It Ends With Us , head to the big screen, led by Blake Lively.

Lively stars as Lily Bloom, a woman in pursuit of a new life after overcoming her traumatic childhood. During her journey, she connects with a neurosurgeon, but the spark that lights reminds her of her parents' relationship.

Justin Baldoni stars opposite Lively as Ryle Kincaid, but he also directs the film, penned by screenwriter Christy Hall.

Joining Baldoni and Lively in the cast are Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar, Hasan Minhaj, Kevin McKidd, and Amy Morton.

The book is widely beloved by fans of Hoover's work, but has been critiqued for its depiction of toxic relationships. Now, the story is meeting its first theatrical audiences, and it's safe to say that those same concerns are still rife.

Brian Orndorf of Blu-ray.com says, "there's something about this cinematic representation of doubt and danger that makes Hoover's work seem ridiculous, or worse when it comes to trivializing real-world pain."

Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press says the film "tries to balance the realities of domestic violence inside a rom-com and a female-empowerment movie. All suffer in the process."

Other people also voiced concern, with Laura Clifford at Reeling Reviews saying that "serious issues shouldn't be cloaked in soapy fantasy" and Clarisse Loughrey of Independent (UK) saying, "it's also entirely ill-equipped to square such sensitive material up against scenes of diamanté boots being sensually rolled down."

Among the concerns were positive reviews, including from Owen Gleiberman at Variety , who calls It Ends With Us "an avid and emotional movie that pulls you right along," and Proma Khosla from indieWire says the film "manages to sensitively handle its delicate subject matter".

It Ends With Us currently has a rotten score of 58% on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, but it does mean that more than half of the 48 critics who have reviewed it so far feel it has some value to offer.

It Ends With Us Review Roundup

• TheWrap: Like popular book club fiction, the romance connects with an audience yearning for strong emotions, toggling between the height of romantic love and the depth of domestic violence until the redemptive end.
• CultureMix: Talented performances from the principal cast members give emotional resonance to the melodrama in It Ends With Us . This worthy book adaptation effectively shows how abuse and generational trauma can be toxic when mixed with love and loyalty.
• Washington Post: Fans pant for romantic male leads who blur the line between passionate and aggressive — and that murk is exactly what the story explores. How can an extravagant gesture double as a red flag?
• Little White Lies: A visual headache, overcrowding every frame with colour, texture and patterns, rather than building to some carefully orchestrated tension.
• Slashfilm: As a survivor of domestic violence myself, I'm grappling with a movie that gets so much right but is ultimately trying to grow a garden in the poisoned soil of bad source material.