When a womans first love suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with a charming, but abusive neurosurgeon is upended, and she realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.
Lily (Blake Lively) is supposed to give an eulogy at her fathers funeral, but she cant. Even with her mother (Amy Morton) there and in the full glare of a packed church, she cannot find five good things to say about the man. Quickly we learn - through some flashbacks - just why that is, and just why shes grown up to be a bit of a romantic. Then she encounters neuro-surgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni) and there is instant chemistry. She then opens a long-dreamed of flower shop and a stranger walks in seeking a job. Guess what? Shes Allysa (Jenny Slate) who just happens to be the sister of her enigmatic stranger. Maybe they can make a go of things? Well a dinner one evening brings her face to face with Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) and that takes us back down the path of retrospection as it turns out that in her younger days, she (Isabela Ferrer) has met this vagrant (Alex Neustaedter) and theys had quite an intense relationship until her father (Kevin McKidd) caught them, and - well you can use your imagination. When Ryle catches them chatting, he suspects the worst and that proceeds to cause his behaviour to materially change the dynamics as matters take a series of quite unpleasant turns. Now, quite why anyone thought this was a film worth making eluded me. Sure the subject matter is serious, but this plodding drama just takes way too long to get going and then when it might to become more compelling it runs out of steam. The camerawork pays far too much superficial attention to the undercooked character of Lily and the writing all too often resorts to power-ballad mode when the story becomes potentially more poignant and resonant. We know that the gist of the plot is to underscore not just the effects of domestic violence in the present, but to try and understand the sources so that path need never be taken again, but its all presented in too shallow a fashion and could easily lose half an hour without impacting on the thrust - such as it is - of the drama. Its disappointing.
I found emIt Ends with Us/em to be largely great, though the way it ends does make me question how I feel about it. The performances of Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni em(just me who thinks he looks a touch like Runar from emIce Age/em? ...)/em, Brandon Sklenar, Jenny Slate - heck, even Isabela Ferrer and Alex Neustaedter em(iffy likeness aside)/em - are stellar. I sensed a lot of chemistry between Lively & Baldoni and Lively & Sklenar, which is impressive to succeed in that area twice. Pace-wise the movie jumps along nicely, all the other major elements like editing, music and whatever are all well done and are only plus points. However, the conclusion disappoints a bit. I do think it just about regains its footing to produce a positive ending, though how it gets there by wrapping up the relationship between Livelys Lily and Baldonis Atlas left me feeling a bit uneasy. As did a few other scenes, though they were of course as intended. Amusing that Im pretty sure I was the only dude (or at least one of a few) in a packed cinema watching this. Upon exiting, visually I kinda felt like Will Smith in that famous emThe Pursuit of Happyness/em em(which I still havent seen btw, gotta get on that)/em crowd scene - only surrounded by women. Bit awkward, I cant lie. Will watch anything! evidently leads me astray sometimes!
