Fortunately it turns out that Allysa is Ryle's sister - what are the odds? - and while Ryle doesn't do relationships, Lily doesn't do casual, so obviously they'll never get together oh hang on. Meanwhile, there's all these flashbacks to when Young Lily (Isabela Ferrer) befriended a (literally) smelly homeless yet extremely hot guy named Atlas Corrigan (Alex Neustaedter), who seems like a decent candidate for the love of her life.
So where is he now? And what exactly is this film about, beyond a bunch of good-looking people who are amazingly rich but still wear onesies to the local bar to get free beer? The answer will surprise you - unless you remember Lily's abusive father, in which case you'll have spent the entire movie waiting for Ryle to follow up on the aggressive chair kick he delivered during his first five seconds of screen time.
Based on the best-seller by Colleen Hoover, this kind of story is built around a balancing act. Our lead needs to be smart and on the ball. She's the audience surrogate, so she has to be someone we'd like to be (or be friends with), which means no silly mistakes. But the entire story is built around her making a bad decision. Just to make things more difficult, Ryle's fatal flaw has to be present right from the start: if he suddenly out-of-nowhere turned bad, then why couldn't he just as suddenly turn good?
That means that much of the drama in this film comes not from the actual situations, but in seeing how the story is going to thread the needle. He needs to be decent enough to be worthy of her love, but bad enough to make the plot work; she needs to be someone we can admire, but also someone who would fall for an (somewhat) obviously flawed man.
It Ends With Us manages to pull it off, but it's a close thing. Once he goes bad, everyone - no exceptions - understands that a line's been crossed; once Lily calls out his behaviour for what it is, there's no half-baked justifications or explanations. Which leaves that behaviour weirdly rootless, an aberration (that nevertheless cannot be excused) that stands alone. He's not a controlling violent freak, he just acts like one on those rare occasions when he gets jealous.
The big loser in all this is modern-day Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), who when he finally does show up just gets to glower and be aggressively supportive at a time when everyone involved realises romance of any kind is off the table. It doesn't help that Sklenar and his younger self don't look all that much alike (Ferrer, on the other hand, is spot-on as young Lily), which tends to defuse any real connection between their current day counterparts.
Wanting to tackle serious issues yet still keep that rom-com / female empowerment vibe strong, often this kind of film has so many contradictions it tears itself apart. There's plenty of stress fractures here (can Allysa manage to be a good friend and a loyal sister?), but there's decent chemistry between Lively and Baldoni and that makes up for a lot. She fell for him because he's hot and rich; what more do we need to know?
Well, maybe a bit more, which is where Lively steps up. This is her film and she carries it well, selling the few comedy moments as strongly as the drama. Despite the wobbly mix of the lightweight (the film makes a joke of it, but still: did this flower-obsessed woman really need to be named Lily Bloom?) and the extremely serious, Lively keeps Lily's feet firmly on the ground. You may not leave wanting to know what happens next, but this ending feels earned.
- Anthony Morris
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