While Ryan Reynolds is riding high with his big release of the year, Deadpool and Wolverine, his wife, Blake Lively, is giving him competition with her latest film, It Ends With Us. Directed by Justin Baldoni, the romantic drama is based on the novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, and sees the director and Lively playing a couple in a complicated relationship.
Since its release, the film has been churning out a lot of debates, and not all of them are of the positive kind. Apart from talk about the script having changed many key aspects of the book, there are reports of an alleged feud between the two lead stars. But fans are also not sparing Lively’s outfits in the film, which is being heavily criticized on social media.
Blake Lively’s Styling Choices In Her Latest Film Hasn’t Impressed a Few Fans
In It Ends With Us, Blake Lively plays Lily Bloom, an aspiring entrepreneur who moves to Boston following the death of her father, with hopes of a fresh start. She enters into a passionate romance with a dashing neurosurgeon played by Justin Baldoni. This then takes her down a complicated soul-searching journey into her past traumatic experiences while also having to come to terms with her current complex relationship.
The film, which is an adaptation of the controversial best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover, opened to mixed reviews from audiences and critics. Many viewers appreciated The Shallows actor’s performance and her chemistry with Baldoni, who is also the director. However, some other fans were critical of a few aspects that did not work for them.
Among them, Lively’s wardrobe in the film has come under immense scrutiny, despite a cross-section of viewers absolutely loving the avant-garde look created by designer Eric Daman. Daman revealed to Variety that the celebrity was extremely involved in putting together the outfits for the character, and even brought things from her own collection to create the final look.
While Lively is known to be a fashionista with impeccable taste, her character Lily in the film is getting a lot of criticism for her appearance. A fan who made an Instagram reel with clippings of her in various costumes on set, elicited many responses online. One viewer believed that the star made a gross mistake by trying to style herself.
Lively said she dressed herself in her own clothes and those of her husband and Gigi Hadid. So this is where this disaster stems from.
Another fan elaborated on the fact that the costumes did not reflect the nature of the character. This became confusing to process, especially for people who were familiar with the protagonist from Hoover’s book.
Lily is such a complex, soft, but strong character. They made the outfits look so garish and sometimes just not so Lily.
Another discerning fan added to this thought and pointed out that the choice of clothes embodied the essence of Lively and her unique fashion sense, but were incongruous to the character. With rumors about a misunderstanding between the Savages star and Baldoni making the rounds, these latest criticisms of the film are adding to its woes.
Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us Makes a Few Significant Alterations From The Book
There’s a lot of chatter around Blake Lively’s latest film, It Ends with Us, directed by Justin Baldoni. While there have been positive and negative reviews regarding this novel adaptation, a few key changes have been made to the screenplay when compared to author Colleen Hoover’s original narrative.
An article in Vogue details a few of these differences that are significant. The storyline has many references to domestic violence that Lively’s character, Lily Bloom, faces in her past life, as well as in her relationship with Baldoni’s character, Ryle. But in the film, the protagonist’s realization and acknowledgment of the violence that she is enduring comes much later on. In the book, Lily is able to see the signs right away in her relationship with Ryle.
Another major aspect that was completely edited from the film was the presence of popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who was a pivotal influence in the protagonist’s life in the book. Hoover’s narrative shows a young Lily and her first love, Atlas, looking at DeGeneres as a role model who has a deep impact on their lives.
Lily even names her daughter Dory as an homage to the comedian’s famous character in Finding Nemo. But the film chooses to completely forgo this subplot, and only refers to the talk show host in passing through a few references and images.
The ending of the film follows a similar path as the book, with Lively’s character telling her husband, Ryle, that she plans to divorce him following the birth of their daughter. But this also almost went through a change when screenwriter Christy Hall wanted to rewrite the final dialogue which saw the protagonist telling her child, ‘it ends with us’. Hall elaborated to EW on why she initially wanted to modify this.
As a screenwriter, a big no-no is you don’t want any character to ever say the title of the film. So in my initial draft…I had her say the line, ‘It stops here, between you and me,’ blah, blah, blah. I didn’t have her say, ‘It ends with us.’
Interestingly, an experiment that saw a group of fans being invited to read the early draft of the screenplay led to Hall sticking to the original dialogue. The fans’ unanimous dismissal of the modification made the writer realize that it should not be tampered with.
