For the movie career of Blake Lively, the new movie “It Ends With Us”, represents the first time she has been the lead actor in any major motion picture. It Ends With Us, is based on the best-selling book, written by Coleen Hoover. This is a love story, a story about friendship and domestic abuse.

This movie will remind most of one of the many Lifetime romantic movies and during this film, the story seems to struggle when trying to be more than just another TV movie. The message of this story of domestic abuse with the main character Lilly Bloom, played by Blake Lively trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband Ryle Kincaid, played by Justin Baldoni, is that people stay in bad relationships because they believe it is the path of least resistance. Far too often this turns out to be the exact wrong decision.

The signature moment of this story is when Allysa, Lilly Bloom’s friend, played by Jennie Slade, asks her, why do you stay the victim of a domestic abuser? Her answer was simple and profound, “It is easier to stay”. How many people in the world ruin their lives by staying with the exact wrong person, risking verbal and physical abuse because the logistics of separation and divorce seem worse than the abuse they are suffering? Many of us know of situations like this firsthand, a tragedy that happens far too often, resulting in lifelong damage to the children within an abusive marriage. The other message of this story is that Lilly Bloom’s mother was also a victim of domestic abuse and history repeats itself with Lilly’s husband Ryle.

All of the domestic violence in this story has to do with her husband’s jealousy of Lilly’s boyfriend from her teenage years, Atlas, played by Brandon Sklenar. After Lilly opens a flower shop in Boston, she runs into Atlas who runs a restaurant nearby unexpectedly, and this causes great conflict between Lilly and Ryle leading to every incident of domestic violence, due to Ryle’s jealousy.

In the beginning, the violence Lilly endures seems accidental, but later more intentional, as her husband promises, “This will never happen again”. The ending of this movie was also profound, with a perfect conclusion that ends with the line that is the title of this movie “It Ends With Us”. I also thought that the acting was good throughout, even though there were too many times when this story seemed more like a Lifetime TV movie rather than a major motion picture.

I am sure that the screenwriters of this film, including Colleen Hoover were hoping to win a best adapted screenplay Oscar for this movie, but unfortunately the Rotten Tomatoes overall low critical ratings of only 57%. have probably killed any chance for a nomination. I thought this movie was good, with a powerful message and solid acting with my rating of 82% and a recommendation.