The movie only came out what, a few days ago, and there’s already been so much controversy surrounding every single aspect of this film—from co-stars unfollowing each other, shady interviews, to extreme criticism on how this film is being misrepresented, specifically by Blake Lively. It’s a mess, so let’s get into it.
If you’re on TikTok, you’ve probably seen the footage of *It Ends With Us* being filmed all around New Jersey, and ever since then, it’s been non-stop controversy surrounding it—from people not loving the outfit choices, to people not loving the casting choices. It’s been pretty messy from the start, and that theme is sticking around going into release week.
Now, for those of you who don’t know, *It Ends With Us* is a book by Colleen Hoover, and it found major success thanks to TikTok. You can’t even walk into an Indigo or Chapters without seeing this book front and center on some book talk rack.
Guys, I took my girlfriend book shopping at Target, and I asked her why all these books were backwards on the shelf. It’s Colleen Hoover, and she said, ‘Ask TikTok. What is going on? Why are they backwards? Someone tell me.’
Now, if you don’t know who Colleen Hoover is and you’ve never read any of her books, you might have picked up this book in the store and thought it was some like teen romance novel when it’s actually quite the opposite.
*It Ends With Us* is about domestic violence (DV), and Colleen Hoover has actually been accused of romanticizing toxic relationships to her younger viewers. Someone on Reddit explained this, and they said, ‘Some of her books notably either center or touch on domestic and/or toxic relationships.
Given they’re primarily romance novels, some of these have been accused of romanticizing relationships or allowing for plot lines that quickly move past abuse to focus on forgiveness or moving on.’
I personally never read *It Ends With Us*, so I went into this with no expectations, besides maybe thinking it was some like cutesy rom-com movie when, like I said, it’s actually quite the opposite.
Unfortunately, the promo for this movie has been doing a very poor job of making it clear what this movie was about and instead have made it sound so much more light-hearted.
The cast has been doing promo all week long, and some of them have been handling it better than others. Director and star Justin Baldoni sat down with CBS Mornings and talked about the very serious discussions in this movie and what his hopes are for people, more specifically men, who may watch it.
As a man, I’m always going to come with my own biases, and it’s one of the reasons I was afraid to direct this movie, let alone act in it.
And I wanted to make sure this film always had a female gaze, and I was never putting myself into it. But one of the things that I think is very easy to say, especially for us men, is when we maybe talk to somebody who’s in the situation or we read a book or we hear a news story, the question that’s always asked is, ‘Why did she stay?’ And that’s the wrong question.
What we need to be asking ourselves is, ‘Why do men harm?’ Yes. And that was the big thing for me, and what I’ve learned more and more and more of is like, you know, these women, women who experience this every single day, there’s real love there. You know, there’s charm, there’s charisma, there’s passion, there’s this belief that they can be better, and it’s not so simple.
Our friends at No More, um, I’m wearing their pin right now, they were the ones who really worked with me to help me make this film as truthful as possible.
And people in the comments of this video were actually shocked to hear someone finally bring up the domestic violence portrayed in this movie. One person said, ‘This is the first time I’ve heard anyone on the cast talk about the DV in this movie,’ with another person writing, ‘He is the only person bringing awareness to the actual topic and issue.’
Blake Lively has also been doing press all week long, and she’s definitely taken a different approach. When asked very similar questions, most of us, if we’re lucky enough to run into a celebrity in public, we only have a few moments to maybe speak with you guys.
But for people who see this movie, who relate to the topics of this movie on a deeply personal level, they’re really going to want to talk to you. This movie is going to affect people, and they’re going to want to tell you about their lives.
So if someone understands the themes of this movie, comes across you in public, and they want to really talk to you, what’s the best way for them to be able to talk to you about this? How would you recommend they go about it?
Blake Lively: ‘Like asking for like my address or my phone number or like my location share? I could just location share you and then we could, uh, I’m just… social security number… I’m a Virgo, so I’m like, are we talking logistics? Are we talking emotionally?’
And even when she’s asked directly to comment on the domestic violence in the film, she still somehow manages to talk her way out of giving any kind of answer with actual substance.
Interviewer: ‘So a lot of survivors of generational and domestic violence are going to see this film. I’m curious, what is the message that you hope that they take away from it?’
Blake Lively: ‘I think that you… So much, and not to minimize it in any way, but you… So much more than just a survivor or just a victim. While that is a huge thing, you are a person of multitudes, and what someone has done to you doesn’t define you. You define you.
And what you have in you and what you’re capable of and what you have done and are doing and will do is so much bigger than anything anyone else can do to you. And I think that that is, um, that feels like it, like it’s so empowering and grounding and grounding and I hope that people see that because this is, this is a story that covers domestic violence, but it’s not about domestic violence. It’s about this woman.’
Now, something else you may have noticed from these clips is the lack of press interviews containing all the main stars in one room.
We never see Blake with Justin, we never see Justin with Colleen Hoover. They’re very much always split up, which has fans thinking something may be going on between the cast.
Only a few months ago, Colleen Hoover had no problem being seen with Justin, and now they couldn’t be further apart.
Colleen has done press with Blake, who is also a main star and a producer for the film, but Justin is missing from all of them, which is pretty disappointing since he seems to be the only person that’s capable of talking about the actual issues in this movie.
The Hollywood Reporter actually covered this alleged rift, and it sounds like there may be some evidence to back up the rumors.
They wrote, ‘Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that there was a fracture among the filmmakers in the post-production process, wherein two different cuts of the movie emerged. The *It Ends With Us* sleuthing on TikTok stemmed from Baldoni’s notable absence from joint press events, the lack of group photos of Lively and Baldoni together at Tuesday’s New York premiere, and the fact that neither Lively, Hoover, nor the rest of the cast follow Baldoni on Instagram, though he follows them.’
This raised eyebrows as during the development of the movie, Hoover and Baldoni appeared together on each other’s Instagrams multiple times.
But despite this potential rift in the cast, Justin has remained very professional and has publicly said nothing but nice things about Colleen, Blake, and the rest of his cast. ‘I don’t think people realize how involved she was in this movie. Um, she’s a producer on the film from the beginning to the end. She was extremely involved, and she really made the film better.
And there were many instances where I honestly just tried to get out of the way and let her take the lead. And especially as when, when it like, when it came to intimacy and all of that, like she had a very clear vision.’
But now it’s being reported that Justin has since sought out crisis PR and is using the same person that also represented Johnny Depp during the Amber Heard trial.
So it looks like he knows that all the press surrounding this film and all the negative discourse coming out about how Blake has been handling herself isn’t a good look for his film, especially since people in the industry are starting to speak out about their negative experiences with Blake Lively.
A few days ago, a reporter re-uploaded an old interview that she’d done with Blake back in like 2016, and she titled it, ‘The Blake Lively Interview That Made Me Want to Quit My Job.’
In the interview, she said Blake had given off a lot of passive-aggressive comments about how she was asking questions that she didn’t like and that she ultimately decided to end the interview herself.
But to add more fuel to the fire, Blake is not the only member of the cast who’s being messy right now. Fans recently noticed that Jenny Slate, who plays Alyssa in *It Ends With Us*, had been out here on Twitter liking tweets about how bad the movie is and how it’s misrepresenting Colleen Hoover’s book.
One of the tweets she liked said, ‘Even before Blake Lively signed on to play Lily, fans were already casting doubt on the adaptation and with good reason.
I mean, have you seen those set photos?’ And that’s not all. There’s also been fan outrage over the fact that they’re not naming Ryle’s abuse for what it is. Someone said, ‘Reading *It Ends With Us* to prepare for the movie, and I forgot they didn’t even name Ryle’s abuse for what it was.
Like, she’s literally so flabbergasted that she turned into one of those women who stay.’ And they did not need to water down this book, but with how they’ve been talking about this movie so far, it’s making me nervous.
The best way to describe how they’re handling this situation is honestly with kid gloves. They really don’t seem to be tackling any of the issues head-on, and it’s just so very disappointing.
Let me know what you guys think about this situation. What are your thoughts on this film and how it’s being portrayed? And what do you think about how Blake has been handling this press tour? Don’t forget to hit that like button down below. Subscribe to my channel, and I will see you in my next video. Bye, guys.”
