Mindy Kaling wrote in Flick Chicks, her sage New Yorker essay from 2011 on the romcom, “I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.”
These are words to live by. Done well, the enormous apartments and well-appointed kitchens that define the filmed romance must be treated with the same deference afforded to Ken Adam’s production designs for Dr Strangelove. Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s hugely popular book It Ends With Us exists in Kaling’s sci-fi space. Chance encounters lead to more chance encounters. Conveniently wealthy pals (including Jenny Slate) buy dinner and drinks.
The film’s heroine, Lily Boom (played by an ornately styled Blake Lively), is not just a florist; she’s the creator of ravishingly beautiful horticultural arrangements. Her love interest, Ryle (effectively played by a double-jobbing Baldoni), is not just a neurosurgeon; he’s a ripped, impossibly charming neurosurgeon. Even the film’s superbly named homeless character, Atlas Corrigan, is a glamourpuss.
Here’s the rub. For all the meet-cute romance, this is not a romcom: it’s a drama about the intergenerational nature of domestic violence.
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Lily, as Hoover did, witnesses her mother being physically abused by her father during childhood. Working from Christy Hall’s carefully calibrated script, Baldini crafts a gaslighting drama. Lily hides her increasingly intolerable domestic life not just from her friends but also, in a way, from herself. As in the novel, the picture-perfect romcom trappings provide a seductive counterargument to escape. Yes to the kitchen. Russell Barnes’s production designs are top-flight.
Domestic violence, albeit PG-rated, remains an odd narrative development to encounter in an otherwise pretty popcorn movie. One minute Lively shakes her curls and wears the heck out of dungarees and vintage layers. The next is very different. Loyal fans will be pleased. Untold millions of BookTok users can’t be wrong, surely.
It Ends With Us is in cinemas from Friday, August 9th
