Film review: Blake Lively is simply superb in It Ends With Us

The film segues into an exploration of a relationship darkly charged with the potential for domestic violence

Justin Baldoni stars Ryle alongside Blake Lively's Lily

• It Ends With Us 
• ★★★★☆
• Cinematic release

Adapted from Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, It Ends With Us (15A) stars Blake Lively as the Boston florist Lily Bloom, who is attracted to the broodingly handsome neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni) when they first meet.

Ryle, however, has something of a temper, and Lily’s childhood experience of living with an abusive father makes her wary of excusing Ryle’s occasional outbursts of anger.

Adapted by Christy Hall and directed by Justin Baldoni, It Ends With Us opens by leaning into the conventions of the romantic drama before gradually segueing into an exploration of a relationship darkly charged with the potential for domestic violence.

It’s a gripping tale, not least because Baldoni initially frames Ryle’s flare-ups in such a way that Lily — along with the audience — can persuade herself that they were accidental: we’re never really sure what we’re seeing, and thus we’re never really sure how we feel about Ryle.

Baldoni provides strong support as the charming but emotionally mercurial Ryle, but Lively is simply superb in the lead, delivering a career-best performance of subtlety and depth as Lily navigates her way through an impossible situation with a steely determination not to suffer like her mother — and so many other women — in silence.