Blake Lively: My domestic abuse film is tragic and inspiring

For many young woman, there have been very few film adaptations as hotly anticipated as Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us.

The 2016 book became an internet sensation a few years ago – it took TikTok’s #booktok by storm with more than one billion tags and sold 20 million copies weeks as the number one New York Times bestseller.

While on the surface the film appears to be a standard romantic comedy, it comes with a dark twist.

Starring Gossip Girl star Blake Lively, it tells the story of Lily Bloom, a young woman who grew up witnessing domestic abuse and winds up in the same position years later.

Lily, a florist in Boston, navigates a complicated love triangle between her charming but abusive boyfriend Ryle Kincaid – played by Jane the Virgin’s Justin Baldoni – and her compassionate first love, Atlas Corrigan, acted by Brandon Sklenar.

Speaking to the BBC at the premiere, Lively says she felt the “responsibility of servicing the people that care so much about the source material”.

“I really feel like we delivered a story that’s emotional and it’s fun, but also funny, painful, scary, tragic and it’s inspiring and that’s what life is, it’s every single colour,” says the 36-year-old actress who is married to fellow actor Ryan Reynolds.

But the film has been met with some criticism that it romanticises domestic abuse.

A two-star review from The Telegraph called it a “queasy drama” that “repackages domestic violence as slick romance”.

Tim Robey added that the film “splices abuse and glossy courtship in the big city to deeply dubious effects”.

Hoover has explained that her inspiration for the novel was the domestic abuse that her mother endured.

Rebecca Goshawk, who works for Solace, a charity that supports victims of gender-based violence, says she is worried about how the film may have covered domestic abuse.

“Film can be a really powerful way for young people to see examples of domestic abuse and educate them about healthy relationships,” she explains.

“But when it’s done poorly it’s really worrying as it could romanticise unhealthy relationships and young people don’t have the knowledge to see what is dangerous behaviour.”

Lively, who is also credited as a producer, tells the BBC that she is adamant the film has been made sensitively and “with lots of empathy”.

“Lily is a survivor and a victim and while they are huge labels, these are not her identity. She defines herself and I think it’s deeply empowering that no one else can define you.”

Fans at the premiere also say that they don’t think the book or film romanticise unhealthy relationships.

Taylor Lopez, 19, says that showing the story from the perspective of a victim who grapples with the difficult decision of loving someone but also needing to leave them is done really well.

Her friends Phoebe and Celina agree, adding that the film “perfectly comes together” and “the feelings and experiences of the characters are so relatable”.

They all also think that Lively, who rose to fame in the 2000s playing Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl, is the perfect casting.

“In the book Lily is a 23-year-old and so people have complained about her casting but actually she’s the perfect choice,” Celina explains.

However, the critics have not been so favourable, awarding the film a mix of two and three stars.

The Independent said the film was “sincere but completely ludicrous” in a two-star review and added that Lively’s character “does not register as a real person, so, it’s odd, and a little uncomfortable, to see her burdened with such raw trauma”.

The Guardian acknowledged that there were “expected clichés, but there are also many that are mercifully avoided too, the story not always conforming to type”.

A four-star review from The Times was one of the most favourable and described the film as “Pretty Woman meets 50 Shades of Grey” and a “dizzy, guilty pleasure”.

“Lively is perfectly cast and has that combination of self-consciousness, determination and doubt that is wholly fitting for a character yearning to break free from the coercive clutches of those around her,” Kevin Maher wrote.

Adaptations of popular books, particularly those read by younger women such as Twilight and The Hunger Games, have become blockbuster hits.

Hoover and Lively’s loyal and impressively large fan bases may help It Ends With Us on to that list, despite the lukewarm response by the critics.