It Ends With Us Movie Tries to Fix Colleen Hoover Book’s Problems, But Still Reeks of Hollow Girl Power

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In this op-ed, writer Sriya Tallapragada reflects on reading It Ends With Us as a young teenager, exploring the way her views on the story have changed and analyzing how the It Ends With Us movie presents its domestic violence storyline.

As a teenage girl, much of the media I’ve consumed over the past few years has enforced a “girl power” message. I’ve tagged social media posts with #girlboss, traded friendship bracelets with strangers at Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour, dressed up for the Barbie movie, worn pink on Wednesdays in honor of the new Mean Girls musical movie, cheered for the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team at the Paris Olympics, rocked out to Olivia Rodrigo’s feminist anthems on her Sour Tour, and most recently, told everyone I know that “Kamala Harris IS Brat” as a way of campaigning for her to win the upcoming presidential election.

When I walked in for the early showing of It Ends With Us (the movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book) — and advertised as a “Girls Night Out” by AMC theaters — “girl power” was exactly the vibe I got. The theater was overwhelmingly composed of other teenage girls, most of whom were obviously part of the “CoHort,”the name given to Colleen Hoover fans. Fans piled in wearing It Ends With Us merch (complete with crewneck sweatshirt, sweatpants, and trucker hat), hiding snacks inside an It Ends With Us tote bag, and even showing off colors on manicured nails inspired by the movie’s main characters.

Fandoms dressing up to attend screenings isn’t a new phenomenon, but it was an odd mismatch in tone for a book and movie centered around domestic violence and breaking generational trauma patterns. The marketing doesn’t match the message, and the message is convoluted by the marketing as a light-read, girls-night-out romance.

It Ends With Us centers around protagonist Lily Bloom, who is building a new life by opening a flower shop in Boston. (Yes, her name is a source of humor in the movie.) She falls in love with Ryle Kincaid, a successful neurosurgeon, but this perfect romance's mix of sugar, spice, and everything nice begins to sour when Ryle's abusive tendencies emerge. As Lily struggles with her feelings for Ryle, her past comes back into her life through her first love Atlas Corrigan, who helped her through her father’s abuse of her mother, and who she helped as well when he was kicked out of his home when they were both teens. Ultimately, Lily gains the strength to leave Ryle and protect herself and her daughter, vowing that the cycle of abuse that plagued her family “ends with us.”

The book, which came out in 2016, became a bestseller and has ended up in the hands of over eight million people, including my own.

I first picked up It Ends With Us when I was 13 years old and quarantined during the COVID pandemic, trapped in the monotonous oblivion of online school. As someone who grew up dreaming about Disney princess weddings, consuming art by romantics, and writing amateur love poetry without any real-life experience, I was used to the romance genre — used to escaping into sometimes unrealistic love stories, fantasies of romance, and recommendations given by BookTok, which I religiously followed). My first impression of It Ends With Us was how poorly it was written. (Among other bits of cringey writing, a central plot point is that the teenage version of the character writes letters to Ellen DeGeneres, which left me feeling a profound sense of second-hand embarrassment.)

However, much to my surprise, It Ends With Us was actually quite eye-opening. Up until that point, domestic abuse was something I only heard about from intimidating statistics in research studies presented by my middle school health teacher during the “relationships” unit. When it was discussed, people would perpetuate stereotypes of who is susceptible to abuse or becoming abusive. The heartbreaking plotline of It Ends With Us showed me, through Lily’s story, that domestic abuse could be present in unexpected ways. I remember talking with my friends about how to prevent it from happening to our own relationships.

As I’ve grown older, my relationship to the book has changed — and I’ve been able to see how the marketing of it as a romance novel exacerbated the problems in the source material. Lily does not go far enough to set a healthy example of what breaking out of an abusive relationship looks like. Although the book ends with Lily making the decision to leave Ryle, she still offers him many liberties, including unsupervised time with her child and letting him continue his professional career as a doctor. Unfortunately, Lily’s concessions in the storyline only entertain toxic masculinity at the expense of female suffering. (And it was only a year ago that Hoover had to apologize for a planned It Ends With Us coloring book that Atria Books canceled after reader outcry.)

In an author’s note at the end of the book, Hoover tells us that the novel was inspired by her mother’s bravery in leaving an abusive relationship with her father: “I write to entertain, I don’t write to inform or to educate. But this book was a different beast.” When I heard the movie adaptation was coming out, I saw it as a chance for Hoover’s mission to be fulfilled; the movie could be used as a powerful tool to shed light on the realities of domestic abuse, while also clarifying the ending to further protect Lily and Emerson from Ryle’s abuse. The impact this could have would be monumental; over 1 in 3 women in the U.S. have “experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime,” and globally, as many as 38% of all murders of women are committed by intimate partners, according to the World Health Organization. In light of these statistics, it is crucial for movies like this one to offer hope and support to show that breaking free from cycles of domestic abuse is possible.

To its credit, It Ends With Us does try to fix some of the issues mentioned above. In the book, Lily leaves her daughter with Ryle for his co-parenting day and then runs to Atlas; in the movie, she hands her daughter to her mother before speaking to Atlas, a subtle but clear change that reflects a possible reality where Ryle does not have partial custody of his daughter. Elsewhere, the movie changes details about how much Ryle’s sister — and Lily’s best friend, Allysa (Jenny Slate) — knows about his history of abusive behavior and instead centers the pivotal line Allysa tells Lily: “As his sister, I wish more than anything that you find a way to forgive him. But as your best friend, I have to tell you that if you take him back, I will never speak to you again.”

Still, the movie — like the book — fails to really commit to the seriousness of its storyline, staying true to its teen romance origins, complete with eccentric outfits, sarcastic one-liners, uplifting music, and steamy scenes that, as director Justin Badloni put it, catered to the “female gaze.”

Although we see Lily recognize the abuse taking place after Ryle’s sadistic rape attempt, we do not see the exact steps she takes to break this cycle. We hear a brief conversation with Atlas (who takes her to the hospital and offers her a home after she leaves Ryle) and Allysa encouraging her to leave Ryle, but we only get montages of strength (set to Taylor Swift’s “My Tears Ricochet”) that allude to Lily taking steps to reclaim her life. We see Lily telling Ryle that she will not be returning home with him, as well as a potential start to her relationship with Atlas, but we don’t see specifics of what happens with her daughter, Emerson, and her father. The ending robs viewers of the ability to see the full experience of attempting to break free from domestic abuse, choosing a Hollywood ending over the complex reality of the long-term effects of violence and the ongoing injustices of the court system.

Many CoHo fans will be quick to put It Ends With Us up there with all the other “girl power” cultural relics of the past couple years, but this movie cannot be taken seriously as a source of female empowerment — or as a helpful entry in portrayals of domestic violence onscreen. Girl power, to me, means championing female strength and encouraging other women to do the same.

When I think about “girl power” in the fight against domestic abuse, I think about the millions of women everyday who leave relationships and protect their children from abusers, about the nonprofits and shelters that work to help women who have left abusive relationships, and even about people advocating against domestic abuse in their community (such as this viral moment of Miss Kansas calling out her abuser on a pageant stage). I also think about the women unable to leave abusive relationships for any number of reasons, who are working to protect themselves and their children while under the same roof as their abuser.

These are the things that inspire me, as a girl, to stay educated about issues that predominantly affect women, to support other women, and to protect myself in case I end up in a situation like this. For the hundreds of girls sitting next to me in the theater on opening nights, and the millions more that are sure to watch this movie over the next few months, I hope that this film helps remove the stigma about domestic abuse, but also that viewers take its portrayal with a grain of salt.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue

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