Love that hurts, and an adaptation that endears

Mona

For starters, it’s just not another two-hour-long romantic drama, but a phenomenon. When one of the bestselling authors of current times Colleen Hoover’s most notable work, ‘It Ends With Us’, gets a screen outing, there is already a tribe rooting for her. Couple it with drop-dead gorgeous Justin Baldoni, paired with every girl’s girl-crush Blake Lively.

Busy Boston or marvellous Maine, the luxe penthouse to a flower boutique, it is one beautiful movie with attractive folks.

If you had been living under the rocks, let’s tell you the plot. A daring diva puts in all her money to fulfil her lifelong dream to open a business. Our protagonist is named Lily Blossom Bloom (Blake Lively). She runs into a hot, ripped, loaded neurosurgeon in Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni). Everything is going perfect for a while. Lily’s high school love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), returns as the hot chef of Boston’s upcoming restaurant Roots, and their paths cross.

As Lily battles the shadows of an abusive past, the choice is if she will break the pattern or be broken by it.

Adapting any book is a mammoth task; bookaholics will point out every detail — the colour of the hair to the eyes not ‘exactly’ matching. But hats off to director Justin Baldoni (yes, he also plays the male lead). He is able to take in viewers with him from the very first scene.

All Hoover fans, and their dragged partners, cannot but marvel at the beauty he puts on the screen.

Lively needs no validation for her act, but as Lily, well, she blooms. In each frame, as she steps in, she takes one’s breath away. Her counterpart Baldoni, as Ryle, is a bit lower than her on the hotness level but manages to equalise when it comes to acting. Brandon Sklenar gives stiff completion to Baldoni in both departments, despite his brief appearance.

Jenny Slate and Hasan Minhaj as uber rich friends/family fill this world with mirth and jollity.

The film flits between past and present, keeping one engaged between love like no other and shadows of abuse creeping in hard and fast.

Everyone and everything that is in the film looks spectacular; it’s a nod to cinematographer Barry Peterson. Taut screenplay makes this romance entertaining.

Full marks to Christy Hall for the adaptation, that carries the essence of the novel (even if it feels rushed), and adds to it that silver screen charm. Colleen Hoover is the executive producer. Dialogues are crisp and witty, making one chuckle at regular intervals. The music is befitting, with ‘Everybody Needs a Friend’ and ‘Love the Hell Out of You’ appearing briefly at the right moments.

The film sure appeals to one’s emotional chord even if it lacks depth. Those who loved the novel in 2016 when it was released, relive those very emotions in the gorgeous company on screen.

If the book is one of the most hyped chick lits, the film is a well-made romance. It’s no ‘Forrest Gump’ or ‘A Man Called Otto’ (both very fine book adaptations), but it is still a success in the world it operates in.

‘It Ends With Us’ is a film for millennials, and for anyone who wants to break multigenerational negative patterns!

The film is rated A on account of abuse, sex and nudity.