Normally when I’m looking for new movies to watch on Prime Video, I’m not expecting titles that most people have written off as a dud. The Amazon streamer’s current list of top 10 titles is a wildly mixed bag – and there’s one you cannot afford to miss for all the wrong reasons.
I’m talking about It Ends With Us, the 2024 Coleen Hoover novel adaptation starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Just like the original book, it follows florist Lily Bloom (Lively) as she builds a new life in Boston, where she falls for charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni).
When Lily’s first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), appears out of thin air, she’s forced to confront the cycle of abuse in her life and make a difficult choice for her future as well as her daughter’s safety. It’s not exactly a light-hearted watch.
Well, at least you’d think that way. Thanks to the laughable storyline decisions, a wild press tour and production fallout that’s lasted ever since it was released, watching It Ends With Us now means seeing it through entirely new eyes.
It Ends With Us was an unhinged experience at the time — and watching it now is even more chaotic
For starters, you’ve got to take every part of the film’s narrative with a pinch of salt. A florist called Lily Bloom? A meet-cute with a neurosurgeon? That’s almost exclusively soundtracked by Taylor Swift? Do me a favor.
There’s a line between fictional whimsy and implausibility, and It Ends With Us likes to jump across it like there’s puddles either side. You’re laughing at it rather than with it until the domestic abuse storyline is introduced… and then you’re not too sure what to feel.
I remember watching this at a press screening like it was yesterday, only becoming increasingly more baffled with what I had watched as time went on. Without any other reactions to compare it to, the second half of the movie left a sobering taste in my mouth, though there were plenty of flaws in the storytelling.
Then came the press tour leading up to its theatrical release. The creators marketed it as a girl’s night out movie, which drew criticism from fans on social media. After that – without straying too much into celebrity news – Lively and Baldoni weren’t seen together during the movie’s global premieres, with back-and-forth legal battles taking place into 2025.
Culture informs our worldview, and streaming It Ends With Us in hindsight becomes a completely different experience. It’s like the ultimate Easter egg sitting right under your nose… and who wouldn’t want to watch chaos that reveals something new without fail?
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