After Some Not-Great Marketing, Here’s How ‘It Ends With Us’ Actually Depicts Abuse

I didn’t go to “It Ends with Us” at 3 p.m. on a Monday by myself to dunk on it. That being said, I certainly didn’t expect to like it.

The promotional material for the movie immediately raised alarm bells. I saw advertising that stressed the friendship aspect of the movie: “Grab your friends, wear your florals,” as the official TikTok account puts it. Had I not known that the novel was about abuse, I doubt I would have understood it beforehand. As someone with PTSD, I like to be warned before being exposed to content that depicts sexual or gender-based violence and make the decision that’s best for my health.

The depiction of the beginning of Lily and Ryle’s relationship felt incredibly moving to me. The warning signs are there from his first appearance — he kicks over a chair in an angry outburst — but we are encouraged to look past it, given his looks, class, and charm.

These moments are played as romance, which is where I think the read of this movie as romanticizing abuse comes from. To me, it’s a surface-level interpretation of what’s happening here. While Lily, the POV character, is treating this as playful, it’s the start of the long degradation of her boundaries, which we know happens over time in abusive relationships. As an audience member, I felt wholly uncomfortable when Ryle said that he’s “not a stalker” on her roof — only to be told by Lily to stop showing up at her work a few scenes later. Another cut of this movie could easily play this for horror.

That being said, I think it’s important that we see that Ryle is charming and that the chemistry between them is palpable. The uncomfortable reality of domestic abuse is that there are moments of love and happy memories. When we miss that, we risk flattening the survivor narrative into one of, “Why didn’t she just leave?”

I was reminded of when I spoke to Matt Lundquist, a psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy, who told me, “The only responsible question to ask as a therapist, when somebody comes in and they’re recently out of a bad relationship, or they’ve had a string of bad relationships, the relevant question is, ‘What is it about these individuals that was compelling to you? How did you find yourself in these relationships?’” To me, this movie answers that question.

When it came to the actual depictions of physical abuse, I thought they were done with care and weren’t remotely gratuitous. In the first instance in particular, it is shot so quickly and confusingly that we are left with the same question Lily has: Was that on purpose? We later see just how much Lily is the unreliable narrator she says she is, but I liked that this moment used visual language to put us in her shoes. Their relationship escalates to the point where Ryle walking in with a magazine made me squirm; I gasped when I later saw bite marks.

Flashbacks are often used to contrast Lily and Ryle’s relationship with her parents’ marriage. In one pivotal scene, as I saw scenes from the two spliced together, I thought of how effectively it juxtaposes how domestic violence looks from the outside (the terrifying physicality of her father on top of her mother) versus how it feels to be in it (Ryle insisting over and over again that he loves her).

Personally, I felt that the relationship between Lily and her father needed a few extra scenes. How did she react after first seeing the violence? Did her father attempt to gaslight her about the experience, or did she just keep it to herself? I love much of the relationship between Lily and her mother, and I feel like it would have been insightful to gain more of a family picture.

I also don’t like how Allysa, depicted as the ultimate BFF, threatens to “never speak” to Lily (leaving her essentially friendless) if she doesn’t cut contact with Ryle. This moment is portrayed as a great moment of friendship, but it could actually risk the victim being totally isolated.

In many ways, I wish that the movie ended with the “it ends with us” scene. Instead, we get Atlas. Let’s talk about Atlas, because I am concerned about him. I do not like that he essentially trapped Lily in a bathroom to talk about whether or not she was being abused. I do not like that he escalated things with Ryle, which would easily risk making things worse for Lily. I do not think it was appropriate that he says Lily can fall in love with him someday when her marriage is so newly in tatters. (Also, where does he go for the apparent years after that?) Without further character development, it feels mighty red flag-ish.

It’s not that I’m opposed to Atlas’ inclusion in this movie, far from it. There is something to be said about the trauma bond and friendship of two kids alone surviving through the years. I think it’s pretty obvious who Lily will end up with in the movie, and I wish the last shot had been one of her own emancipation instead. My coworker, who has read the book, told me that his depiction is more fleshed out and trustworthy there.