‘It Ends with Us’ Capsule Review: An Important Message Wrapped In Convenience And A Moderate Blake Lively Performance
From Sony Pictures
Capsule Reviews feature a collection of thoughts from Sean Phillips (Math Teacher Movies) on films from recent days, as well as the past year, decade, and beyond.
From Sean Phillips
If the importance of It Ends with Us is to bring awareness to the issue if domestic violence, the film succeeds and is important for that reason alone. Blake Lively gives a purely moderate performance with some solid emotion.
The film calls attention to the issue of domestic violence and the situations surrounding it, but the bow is tied a bit too nicely at the end, which is probably an important thing to do and might also be a disservice.
Many moments of this film were telegraphed or obviously far too convenient and probably worked better as words on the page. Calling out the stupidity of the name and action of the main character does not excuse it.
It Ends with Us has its charms and emotional weight, but then whenever a great storytelling note was used it was called out which, was frustrating. The dialogue in this film is next-level atrocious and feels as if it was made from the corn of the excrement of a Lifetime original movie.
Justin Baldoni plays a very solid villain with levels of passion and is also behind the camera, though with a fairly unimaginative and straight down the middle visual direction.
It may be unfair to say that a male’s perspective from the director’s chair should not be welcomed in this type of film, but based on the final product and some mysterious drama behind the scenes, that seemed like a bad call.
Jenny Slate is basically just playing the best friend role which is far more flat then her talent deserves, but she still shines with an honest depiction through both humor and heartbreak.
Brandon Sklenar’s only job was to look pretty as the character was basically the object of affection, but he gives it just a bit more than that by breaking your heart.
The tension in the air of the moments of abuse was always terrifying and papable, which made for a difficult watch, but one that accomplished the film's objective.
When handling an issue like this film's central theme, it’s important to be both delicate and clear. This film skirts that line and could have stood to be handled with a bit more sensibility.
Rating: 2/5
It Ends with Us is currently in theaters.
