It Ends with Us but the Blake Lively Era is just heating up
Take one smash-hit novel, mix it with a succulent big-screen adaptation, add in a dash of real-life drama and top it off with a generous serving of a sparkling movie star reaching the peak of her powerhouse-yet-still-wholesome-as-pie celebrity.
What’s this concoction, you ask?
Why it’s Blake Lively’s vehicle of doubling down on not only winning the popularity contest with her own hubby, but cementing (at least for a Hollywood minute) her status as a formidable force, a multiple-threat (add producer, fashion icon, mother of four, baker extraordinaire, entrepreneur and Taylor Swift’s bestie to her list of accomplishments) and the lady of the hour the Universe can’t peel their eyes off of.
Colleen Hoover’s 2016 blockbuster novel It Ends With Us sold over 8 million copies and spent 140 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list so it made perfect sense to translate this complex, flowery yet intense journey of main character Lily Bloom to the big screen. In 2019, actor and filmmaker Justin Baldoni did just that, optioning the film rights to the book via his production company. Baldoni put his director cap on, however only attached himself to the role of Ryle Kincaid, the impossibly good-looking troubled neurosurgeon who skilfully seduces Bloom and subsequently turns less attractive and much more abuser-y, after Hoover herself suggested it.
Baldoni’s attraction to the TikTok sensation was both intense and instinctual and, as he tells the Hollywood Reporter, he envisioned a greater impact it could have on the female audience.
“So often in our industry, we’re told we’re not curing cancer, we’re not saving lives, just making art, just making movies. To that I say, well, I wonder if we’re making the right movies then. And that’s what we want to do differently at Wayfarer. And I thought, well, this is one that could actually make a real difference, this could save a life.”
Cut to January 2023 when we got word that Lively, now 36, was cast as the beloved, flower-loving, bouncy-haired, nuanced heroine, Lily Blossom Bloom.
Following her breakout role as the sometimes troubled, mesmerizing socialite Serena van der Woodsen in the wildly popular teen drama, Gossip Girl, Lively’s big screen career saw some surprisingly eclectic turns, like those in The Town, The Age of Adaline and A Simple Favor, for which she garnered considerable critical acclaim. Once could argue that Lively’s draw multiplied by about a thousand, when she began dating (2011) and subsequently married (2012) her Green Lantern co-star, Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds. The pair projects an ideal blend of domestic bliss, mutual admiration and support, magnetic attraction that only seems to grow with time and, the ultimate make-or-break ingredient of successful coupledom: they are best friends who really, really like each other.
The world took notice and you can see the being referenced as ‘couple goals’ but just about anybody who is yearning for a piece of that made-for-each-other action in their own romantic life.
It Ends with Us die-hard fans protested to Lively being cast, due to a considerable age difference between the book-Lily (aged 23) and real-life Lively and movie-Lily (mid-thirties), though Hoover quickly stepped in to repair any possible damage by saying that she made a mistake with aging Lily and Ryle as much younger than what would be realistic in the book. She told Today, "Back when I wrote 'It Ends With Us,' the new adult (genre) was very popular. You were writing college-age characters. That's what I was contracted to do. I made Lily very young. I didn't know that neurosurgeons went to school for 50 years. There's not a 20-something neurosurgeon. As I started making this movie, I'm like, we need to age them out, because I messed up. So that's my fault."
When the trailer for the heavily-anticipated adaptation dropped in May, not only was Lively’s casting promptly justified (revealing that Lily will be portrayed by a different actress in her teen years) but the audience’s taste buds were tickled by its intensity and a colourful allure full of breathtaking promise. “As hard as this choice is…we break the pattern…or the pattern breaks us,” narrated by Lively, position the journey of a girl who witnesses her own mother’s abuse, finds the strength in breaking the chain of pain after giving birth to a little girl of her own.
The promotional tour kicked off soon after, carrying with it a – no great surprise here – a TikTok-fuelled drama that positioned Lively and Baldoni as nemeses off-the-screen, alluding that the two leads, where one is also the director and the other executive producer, had some fiery creative disagreements when it came to the film’s final cut.
Adding fire to fire were the press tour choices which had Lively give interviews with all other member of the cast, including Jenny Slate (Allysa, the best friend and Ryle’s sister) and her other romantic screen partner, Brandon Sklenar (Atlas Corrigan) but never with Baldoni, who did all his interviews solo. The fact that his co-stars are no longer following Baldoni on social media – add author Hoover to this list as well - thickened the plot. All the while, the interest in the film itself and projected box office results continued to snowball.
The premiere red carpet was peppered with more cheeky morsels. Lively sneakily revealed that her husband, Ryan Reynolds, wrote the pivotal ‘rooftop’ scene in the film. Screenwriter Christy Hall also touched on this scene, detailing how challenging it was for her to truthfully translate it from book pages onto the big screen. Still to be determined who the credit for the scene goes to, though performance wise, both Lively and Baldoni delivered. Baldoni, in particular, cracked a mammoth task of making a bad guy – and we all knew going into this that he will be turning bad at some point – intoxicatingly endearing, even lovable despite his flaws, as he blanketed his rageful episodes in trauma-soaked vulnerability. We feel that he is human to the very end – without giving too much away – he never crosses over to that hate-him-till-we-die column, although his actions are deeply reprehensible and could never be excused nor forgiven.
We’re on the same page with Lily, reaching for the safe, super-available, scarred but nothing-but-adoring hands of Atlas. A boy she saved, loved, lost and found again, only to allow him to return the saving part.
When congratulated on ‘his moment’ at the premiere red carpet, Baldoni turned the spotlight away by saying that the moment does not belong to him but the women the film was intended for.
Highlighting the importance of the film having a ‘strong female gaze’, Baldoni credited Lively with having been involved in its creation “every step of the way”, singing both her and husband Ryan high praises of being ‘marketing’ and ‘creative’ geniuses, respectively.
I’d say they’re both strong in both skillsets, but together? Oh the punch they pack in that coveted power couple category that so few reach and even fewer leverage to its full potential, is unmatched.
When asked about whether he would be spearheading the film’s possible sequel, stemming from Hoover’s 2022 follow-up novel ‘It Starts with Us’, Baldoni simply said, “I think there are better people for that one, I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct. That’s what I think.”
Odds are that the studio heads who stand behind these major decisions are unlikely to make a repeat misstep in judgment, by having a man – no matter how conscious, creative and lovely he may be – direct a film that depicts the theme of domestic violence against a woman.
With Lively having dipped her toe into the directorial waters with Ms. Swift’s "I Bet You Think About Me” music video, Baldoni’s comment, albeit bathed in a mini dose of sarcasm, may actually be a legitimate prophecy.
It Ends with Us is now playing in theaters, across the globe.