Yahoo Lifestyle Here’s How the ‘It Ends With Us’ Film Ending Differs From the Book
Warning! This story contains spoilers.
In the event you’ve been living under a literal rock, It Ends With Us is the film legit everyone seems to be talking about right now. Based on the best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover, it stars Blake Lively in the lead role of Lily Bloom, a florist in Boston who falls in love with Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni), a complicated neurosurgeon.
The duo’s whirlwind romance quickly takes a darker turn, however, when Ryle becomes physically abusive. Viewers soon learn that Lily vowed never to be a victim after it’s revealed that her mother was subjected to domestic abuse by her father when she was growing up. During this time, Lily confided in one person about her home life: her high school sweetheart, Atlas, who is played by Brandon Sklenar as an adult.
Fast-forward to adulthood, and Lily and Atlas unexpectedly bump into each other. It doesn’t take long for him to recognize that his childhood sweetheart is experiencing the same abuse her mother did. Atlas begs Lily to leave Ryle, but she tries to convince him—and herself —that her partner is a good person deep down and that the acts of violence don’t truly represent him.
Further down the line, Ryle sexually assaults Lily. The last straw for Lily, she finally realizes she has to get out and contacts Atlas for help. He takes her to the hospital, only for them to find out Lily fell pregnant as a result of the attack. Deciding to keep the baby, viewers later see Ryle meeting his daughter, Emerson, for the first time before Lily boldly asks him for a divorce.
But just like in any major film adaptation, parts of the plot get tweaked, changed, and cut—and this couldn’t be any truer with It Ends With Us. In the novel, readers see Lily giving Ryle another chance to be a good person by allowing him to see their daughter and co-parent together. However, in the film, she cuts Ryle off completely and tells Atlas a few years later that it’s “just the two” of them.
Baldoni, who plays Ryle and also directed the film, explained this decision in an interview with The Wrap, saying, “In the original draft, we had a scene in the epilogue where we see Ryle dropping off their child to Lily, and they have a short conversation. It was written in a way that showed that they’ve overcome a lot over the last two years.”
But Baldoni soon stated that he “wasn't fully comfortable with it,” and neither was No More, the nonprofit advocacy group “dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence by increasing awareness, inspiring action, and fueling culture change,” which the film struck up a consulting partnership with.
“We were trying to find a way to make it work, to honor the book, but too much had to be done in such a short window to explain how they could possibly be co-parenting,” the actor continued.
Baldoni further explained that the “best ending for Ryle was to look at his wife and kid, and the life that he could have had, the life that he blew up, and to walk out the door and for us not see him again.”
“That was, for me, what felt the best in adapting the book and turning into a film is to say bye to him there,” he concluded.
‘It Ends with Us’ is officially out in theatres now.
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