It Ends With Us first captured the hearts of BookTok readers in 2020, the pandemic. Now that the novel has been adapted into a romantic film starring Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, and Brandon Sklenar, viewers may be curious about some major changes between the book and the movie.
Written by Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us sold more than 8 million copies and spent 140 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Lively plays Lily Bloom, a woman navigating a confusing love triangle between her first love and her current boyfriend.
When Lily meets captivating neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni), she falls deeply in love with him. But she begins to see poisonous characteristics in Ryle that remind her of her parents’ abusive relationship. When Lily’s first love, Atlas Corrigan (Sklenar), enters her life, Ryle finds himself threatened by her relationship. Lily will have to make a complicated decision about her future and who she needs to end up with.
“Lily resonated with a large number of people, as obviously evidenced by the good fortune of the book,” Lively told People in April 2024. “To take on the role of a character who has had such a significant impact is an honor for me. “assume. I enjoyed Lily and I hope the love is felt through those who care about her like I do, and also those who meet her for the first time in this film.
Hoover added that seeing the characters come to life was a big dream come true. “The cinematic experience adds another layer to the connection that readers already have with the characters,” explained the author. “The strength of visual storytelling is undeniable and can elicit even more powerful feelings and empathy from the audience by bringing a sense of immediacy and intensity to the story. I felt so many things while watching the adaptation.
Now that It Ends With Us is officially available, there are several key differences between the film and the beloved novel, the age of the characters, the call from the Atlas restaurant, and the omission of key characters from the book.
In the book, Lily is 23 years old and Ryle is 29, while in the film, both characters are in their thirties. Baldoni told Entertainment Weekly that when he contemplated the film adaptation, he was referring to the aging of the characters.
“I looked for women of all ages to be able to see themselves, and I think aging the characters is helping it become a universal story, and that takes it out of the YA genre. I believed, from the beginning, that Blake Lively was an aspiration for young women and would never be considered too old once they saw the movie,” the actor and director explained.
The e-book part also defended the aging of the characters. Hoover admitted to Today that he made a mistake in setting Ryle’s age at 29 in the novels in the first place. “As I know, we make mistakes,” he said. 28-year-old neurosurgeons, you know?You go to school for 15 years and so, to make corrections to what I missed in the e-book, we age the characters a little bit.
In the book, Lily reconnects with Atlas when she visits his place to eat with Ryle and his mother. Their status quo is called Bib’s, an acronym for “Better in Boston,” written on the fridge magnet he gave her when they were teenagers.
But in the movie, Atlas’ restaurant is called Root, and it will also pay homage to Lily and Atlas’ best school romance. “He depicted anything in the book that became vital for Lily to show how much she meant to him,” Hoover told E!News. ” So he replaced Root in the film, because we didn’t have as much time to incorporate everything that’s included in the e-book. “
He added that converting the call to Root “goes back to a verbal exchange they had as kids in the movie [from which] you get the same feeling as in the book. “
Lily reports moments of physical violence at the hands of Ryle, adding that she was taken, pushed down a flight of stairs, assaulted, and nearly raped. Throughout the book, Lily acknowledges Ryle’s violent habit and warns him each time she will quit if it happens again.
In the film, Lily first dismisses Ryle’s first two acts of physical aggression as accidents. She continues to deny her habit until later in the film, when, despite everything, she begins to recognize the full extent of the abuse.
In the book, Lily’s old diaries, which are letters addressed to Ellen DeGeneres, play a huge role in telling the love story of Lily and Atlas’ formative years. During a difficult time in Atlas’s life, they became friends while watching the popular after-school communication show. They reminded each other to “keep swimming,” encouraged through their Finding Nemo character, Dory. Atlas even gave Lily a signed copy of DeGeneres’ memoir when she was an adult.
However, DeGeneres is absolutely absent from the film adaptation. It’s worth mentioning that the comedian’s career and reputation have suffered since the book’s publication in 2016, following a 2020 Buzzfeed News report detailing the screen’s alleged toxic paint environment. The last episode of the communication screen was broadcast. in May 2022.
Readers of the book will likely be disappointed to learn that some characters were cut from the film adaptation. This includes Devin, Lily’s most productive gay friend, who makes Ryle jealous by pretending to be her boyfriend. The film also leaves out Lucy, Lily’s former roommate, whom he then hires to paint at his flower shop. Ryle’s mom and father are also absent from the film. Instead of getting engaged in his parents’ apartment, Ryle proposes to Lily in Allysa’s hospital room shortly after his sister gives birth.
Watch the trailer for It Ends With Us below.
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