Colleen Hoover published her book “It Ends with Us” on February 29, 2019. The film was released on August 9, 2024 and quickly gained attention due to its storyline of domestic violence. Fans were quick to comment on the lack of abuse portrayal the movie left out.

The book is focused on Lily Bloom and how she grows up in an abusive household. In her early twenties, she ends up in a relationship with Ryle. Their relationship starts off perfectly, but she soon finds herself getting emotionally, physically, and sexually abused like her mother did.

Justin Baldoni acts out as Ryle Kincaid, alongside Blake Lively taking on the role of Lily. Although most film adaptations do not note every detail from the book, the film not including that Lily was physically abused by her father when she was a teen is an important feature. That detail would allow the movie audience to see how she takes that into consideration when deciding if she would put her child to experience what she did.

The movie rather rushed over a lot of the abuse characters encounter in the book making the movie seem more like a romcom which did not please the audience. It seemed to focus more on the relationship between the characters instead of addressing the abuse. Some backlash saying that those who did experience domestic violence did not have the best representation as the film gave off abuse glamorization instead.

Besides the drama with the film adaptation, people quickly became invested with the drama between the actors. The film was directed by Baldoni and rumors swirled how Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, were the reason some scenes were changed around. With all this drama, Baldoni hinted that he probably would not participate in the sequel’s directing team. Maybe this drama impacted the way abuse was camouflaged and overshadowed by romantic scenes.

Perhaps the film did not want to portray a clear visual trigger to some of its audience, but the truth is, people do experience battering and rape in relationships. The audience can use Lily’s life to relate to theirs since abuse is a hard cycle to get out of. Lily’s character portrayed that the cycle of abuse does in fact end with us.