Lily (Blake Lively) and Ryle (Justin Baldoni) share a marvelous meet-cute encounter shortly after this romantic swooner begins.
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| Allysa (Jenny Slate, left) eventually learns to love flowers just as much as her new bestie, Lily (Blake Lively), who has long dreamed of owning a trendy flower shop. |
They notice each other. (How could they not? They’re both incredibly gorgeous.) They make an effort at chatting, at first warily. The mood turns combustible, their smiles grow teasing, their banter increasingly flirty. It’s a classic Hollywood moment, the likes of which we don’t often see these days.
Alas, circumstances prompt Ryle to return to work, so they part.
That aside...
We also watched, during the preceding prologue, as Lily returned to her home town of Plethora, Maine, to attend her father’s funeral. She made a point of not visiting shortly before he died; now, poised to give a brief eulogy — the church laden with people honoring this great man, this pillar of the community — she balks, and flees without a word ... much to the embarrassed consternation of her mother, Jenny (Amy Morton).
Fans of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 romance novel, on which this film is based, will know what’s to come; they’ll watch for little details that’ll probably slip past unsuspecting viewers.
But seriously; with a title like It Ends with Us, things can go only one of two ways ... right?
Jenny wants her only child to remain in Plethora, but Lily — her full name being Lily Blossom Bloom, an obvious strike against her parents — is determined to remain in Boston. Her lifelong goal: to open (what else?) a flower shop. She rents a dilapidated building, begins the herculean clean-up process, and has a second meet-cute encounter: this time with passerby Allysa (Jenny Slate), who has long wondered what the inside of this place looks like.
The two women spar playfully; Allysa confesses that she hates flowers, “because they’re dead.” (Lily finds this amusing.) Allysa nonetheless needs a job, and Lily needs help; what could be more perfect?
Where Lily and Ryle had instant sensual chemistry, Lily and Allysa quickly become as tight as mutually devoted sisters. Slate is delightful: bubbly, spontaneous, outgoing and — we soon learn — sharply observant. Allysa is married to Marshall (Hasan Minhaj), a similar force of nature, and Ryle happens to be her brother. (What a coincidence!)
Ryle then mounts the world’s most persistent wooing campaign, but Lily resists ... sort of. She’s determined to find love, whereas he prefers casual relationships.
Meanwhile...
Occasional interlaced flashbacks show a teenage Lily (Isabela Ferrer, so much like a younger Lively that it’s spooky), when she notices that fellow high school student Atlas (Alex Neustaedter) appears to be homeless, and is living in an abandoned building adjacent to her house. She leaves food for him one day; he deduces it’s her. They become friends ... and then more so.
Whereas the adult Lily and Ryle quickly slide into something exciting and carnal, the teenage Lily and Atlas are shy, sweet and hesitant.
Parallel storylines, parallel budding relationships. Where will each one lead?
Lively solidly anchors this story, capably navigating the subtle nuances of Lily’s emotions, desires and memories. She’s a bold movie heroine with desires, goals and a core of strength; at the same time — and this is important — she’s vulnerable in ways that aren’t immediately apparent.
Baldoni, handsome and charismatic to an almost inhuman degree, makes Ryle playful, determined and incredibly patient. Honestly, Lily repeatedly resists to a degree that’s almost cruel, but Ryle puts up with it; he clearly views the prize as worth however long the pursuit must last.
So things proceed, and — for the first hour — we get caught up in the glamour of the chase, with Allysa and Marshall occasionally cheering from the sidelines.
But then Baldoni — who also directs this film — subtly shifts gears. The atmosphere changes; fresh revelations, past and present, muddy the waters. Something unpleasant, always hovering in the background, becomes more conspicuous: To what degree are we shaped by a traumatic past, and are we destined to follow patterns of learned, undesired behavior?
But ... major but...
The radiant cast and sparkling dialogue can’t conceal the fact that this is a fairy tale, with a rushed, idealistic conclusion that over-stretches credibility. Scripter Christy Hall isn’t to blame; she merely followed the template of Hoover’s novel. (In fairness, Hoover had much more “space” in which to lay the story’s essential foundation.)
This also is a 1950s-style romantic melodrama, laden with characters who have more money than God. Allysa comes by it honestly; she married into Marshall’s wealth. But where does Lily get the $$$ for her quaint apartment, and rental for the shop in one of Boston’s up-and-coming regions, not to mention the expense of transforming the space into the cutest-ever floral emporium? (Kudos to production designers Russell Barnes and Annie Simeone; the place is totally adorable.)
Which also brings us to the numerous, ostentatiously expensive and sexy outfits into which Lively is poured, courtesy of costume designer Eric Daman. Granted, Lively looks terrific in them, but ... seriously? There’s no indication that Lily’s parents had barrels of cash in their basement.
To be sure, major chunks of this film are sweet, romantic and endearing. But they become a distraction that works against the real-world issue that Baldoni (as director) and Hall ultimately can’t credibly depict.
The final message is vital, but — sadly — we simply don’t buy it.
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