It Ends with Us - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

It Ends with Us



Movie:
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Movie
Domestic violence is a heartbreaking pain for any family to deal with, but one of the most insidious traits of the act is that it tends to warp and damage the abused so that the cycle continues for generations. People abused by others in their lives, becoming damaged as a result and subconsciously ending up with someone just like the person who abused them, which in turn continues the cycle as that person “pays it forward”. So when Blake Lively announced that she was starring in a romantic drama regarding this serious subject matter I was kind of intrigued. I have no problem with romantic flicks, and serious dramas are a crowd pleaser for most of us. I was genuinely curious how she and director/writer/actor Justin Baldoni would tell the story, only to realize that this was the equivalent of a Hallmark film’s take on the subject matter. And I’m not even joking.

Lily Bloom (Blake Lively moves back to Boston to stay with her mother after her estranged father dies. The visit back home serves not only as a way to say goodbye to a father she obviously has conflicted feelings over, but also to fulfill her lifelong dream of opening her own flower shop. While struggling to put things together she happens to meet the absolutely breathtaking Neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni) and soon a whirlwind romance is borne. First comes love, then comes marriage, and sooner rather than later, comes the baby carriage.

But things aren’t actually all sugar and roses. Lily has suffered a great deal as the film reveals to us that her father was INCREDIBLY abusive to her mother, even going so far as nearly killing her boyfriend Atlas at the time. And the thing is, she’s continued the cycle as Ryle is not the innocent sweet guy that appears on screen for the first half of the film. His own demons are eating him alive, and come out in the form of “accidents” that Lily falls prey to, leading up to the inevitable conclusion wherein Lily must find a way to break the cycle and ending the saga of passing down abuse from one generation to the other.

Based off of the 2016 best-selling book by Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us is a banal attempt at a romantic drama, attempting to deal with the touch subject of domestic violence. While I dig the subject matter (have not read the book mind you, so I can’t comment on it) the execution of this film adaptation is hilariously bad. Justin Baldoni writes/directs and acts as the main lead across from Blake, and manages to turn the entire film into a mish-mash of messages and cringey attempts at romance that could only be called “Hallmark Channel” level. He SLATHERS the first act of the film with the most over the top rom-com level cheese, complete with Lily Bloom (who wants to open a flower shop. Seriously? You couldn’t be more on the nose?) falling for the devilishly gorgeous Ryle Kincaid, a smoking hot surgeon with an 8 pack and a jawline that would make a runway model jealous. He’s not only hot, but he can cook and is well off. The two fall madly in love while Lily opens her flower shop, only for it to turn out he’s a bad guy. To make matters worse the film ends on a high not that is SOOOO over simplifying the conflicts of abuse. She gets to ride off into the sunset while Ryle gets to go on living life after totally understanding why she has to leave him. Seriously, this reads and plays out like an episode of Days of our Lives, complete with horrible scripts and ham fisted acting.

It Ends with Us struggles to give off the impression of complexity and nuance, yet plays like an episode from a bad soap opera. Blake Lively is decent enough in the role, but has problems coming across as believable due to the script. Baldoni is the weakest link in the film, hamming it up like a Hallmark Channel badguy that the girl has to leave for the hunky carpenter in the small town where she goes to get away from New York City. Even Jenny Slate upstages him and she’s only in it for like ¼ of the movie. The book was a MASSIVE best seller, and while I haven’t read it, I can only imaging that it is in a completely different leave than Baldoni’s attempt at the story.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for domestic violence, sexual content and some strong language.




Video:

It Ends with Us is a solid looking digitally shot film that sadly didn’t get a 4K release yet (event though it was shot at 8.2K and given a native 4K master for this Blu-ray). That being said, the film is a solid contender that falls within the normal visual aesthetic for a drama. It’s bright, colorful, and yet uses dark shadowy restaurant and night sky lined scenes to counterbalance. Visually this is a solid film, with good detail levels and all around great clarity. There are some rather obvious noisy shots here and there, and a sort of soft and dreamy look that keeps this from being truly awesome in the video department. But at the end of the day this fits the motif of a romantic comedy to the T, and does so with ease.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a robust track that works well for what it is. It’s never going to be a rocking action track, or even a moody thriller in terms of intensity, but it sports a very adequate track that balances a front heavy dialog centric motif, and a solid well rounded score to fill out the back channels. Dialog is crisp and clean as can be, and except for a few times where I felt Blake was mumbling, I couldn’t detect any flaws. Surrounds are moderate, mainly used for the score, but there’s a few times inside Atlas’s restaurant where they get some ambient city noise to bleed in. Bass is once more, moderate but never awesome, using most of its power in the score. All in all, this is not going to shock and awe people, but the dialog heavy dramatic mix is perfectly fine considering it’s genre.











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Final Score:
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Yeah, it doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out that It Ends with US is something I just couldn’t get into. It got so frustrating that I would end up pausing the film and going into my wife’s home office to rant to her about the stupidity that I was watching on screen. Is it so horribly done that it’s DTV level bad? No, of course not. It’s just barely one step above that though, even with the high budget and Blake Lively head lining it. But the film itself is a painful disappointment that had potential, and sadly squanders 95% of it. The Blu-ray looks and sounds good, but is devoid of any extras whatsoever, so unless you’re a fan of the film, I would simply skip it.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Blake Lively, Brandon Sklenar, Jenny Slate, Justin Baldoni
Directed by: Justin Baldoni
Written by: Justin Baldoni
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DVS 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 130 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: November 5th, 2024

Recommendation: Skip It