I just walked out of the AMC with tears rolling down my face, my empty popcorn in one hand, and my notes app open in the other to write this article. I want to preface my review of It Ends With Us by stating that I did not read the book, so all my comments are based solely on the film. Do not fret! I will start the book soon.
To me, It Ends With Us was a beautiful depiction of the complexity of trauma — how it sticks with you, warps you, ends you, and evolves you. Watching the film through Lily’s eyes, the audience follows her perspectives, truths, choices, and words as they are shaped by her past and present experiences, inviting the viewer to empathize with Lily and understand how anyone can fall into a cycle of abuse.
The film opens with Lily visiting home after the death of her dad. At the funeral, Lily struggles to think of five things she loved about her father, alluding to their challenged, toxic relationship. Shortly after the funeral, Lily meets Ryle. The rest of the film follows Lily as she falls in love while simultaneously enduring abuse and domestic violence. The abusive relationship develops like a frog put in a slowly boiling pot of water. At first, the frog does not notice the slight temperature changes. It keeps swimming, unaware, not sensing the surrounding danger until the water starts boiling.
The violence in Lily and Ryle’s relationship escalated gradually. The warning signs of abuse were not clear to someone who grew up with an abusive father. When you grow up surrounded by abuse, your mind becomes an expert at disguising it as love to survive. Life never gave Lily the blueprint on how to find and attract healthy relationships, how to be whole and self-trusting, how to return to herself, and how to love. Life taught her to turn violence, betrayal, and trauma into comfort, belonging, and love.
Writer bell hooks teaches us “There can be no love without justice…abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. It is a testimony to the failure of loving practice that abuse is happening in the first place.” For individuals with childhoods like Lily’s, when do you learn bell hook’s definition of love? Who teaches you? What teaches you? We are not taught how to love or receive love in school. We are expected to learn healthy love at home, but what happens if your home defines love as abuse?
Lily could carry all her nesting dolls, the earlier iterations of her brokenness, as poet Maggie Smith says, to safety. She was able to break her cycle. She was able to leave the boiling pot, but this may not be possible for all survivors of abuse.
I hope It Ends With Us starts a more open and honest conversation regarding domestic and familial violence. I hope it brings awareness, empathy, and understanding to the topic, and helps survivors to feel less alone. I hope it inspires more conversations about what it means to receive and give healthy love.
Watching Lily’s journey was heartbreaking, tragic, and beautiful and I highly recommend watching the film, but bring your tissues and comfort candy!
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or go to www.thehotline.org for confidential, anonymous online chats.