The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel “It Ends with Us” is looking to have a healthy second weekend at the box office, but some press around the film has been less sterling.
Beyond reports of creative differences and tensions on set between the film’s star and co-executive producer Blake Lively and her costar and director Justin Baldoni, attention has been brought to how Lively and the movie’s promotional campaign has – or, in some cases, hasn’t – addressed the issue of domestic violence, which is a central plot element in the film.
“It Ends with Us” tells the story of Lily Bloom (Lively), who overcomes a traumatic childhood marred by abuse to realize her dream of opening up a flower shop as an adult. She soon meets Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni), with whom she has an intense connection. As the pair fall deeper in love, Lily soon sees worrying patterns that remind her of her parents’ relationship.
The film, which came out on August 9, touted posters of Lively with flowers, with taglines including “We break the pattern or the pattern breaks us” and “We love. We break. We pick up the pieces.” But a post shared by the film’s Instagram account along with distributor Sony Pictures on the day of release, with the caption “grab your friends. wear your florals,” drew particular ire from users who criticized that message as “tone deaf” and a “massive disappointment.”
Reached out to representatives for Lively and Sony Pictures for comment.
Not helping matters was the fact that Lively also used the film’s promotional tour as a marketing opportunity for her Betty line of cocktails, as seen in an Instagram post around the same time, with many users pointing out that pushing an alcohol brand around a movie detailing domestic abuse is problematic.
On the night of the film’s premiere in New York earlier this month, Lively did share some thoughts directly related to domestic violence, speaking on the red carpet about what she would say to survivors of abuse who see the film: “I think that you’re so much — and not to minimize it — but you are 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.”
Earlier this week, Lively shared a clip to her Instagram Stories of an interview she did with BBC News, in which she said, “The movie covers domestic violence, but what’s important about this film is that she is not just a survivor, and she’s not just a victim.”
“And while those are huge things to be, they’re not her identity,” she continued. “She’s not defined by something that someone else did to her or an event that happened to her, even if it’s multiple events.”
Later, the “Gossip Girl” star also shared a link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline on her Instagram Stories. “1 in 4 women aged 18 and older in the U.S. alone have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Intimate partner violence affects all genders, including more than 12 million people every year in the United States. Everyone deserves relationships free from domestic violence,” she wrote on the story.
But what has stuck out for many was Lively’s now-viral reply to journalist Jake Hamilton in Chicago around the time of the film’s release. When Hamilton asked her what she would say to someone who approached her in public about domestic violence, Lively joked about the “logistics” of how she would have to share her phone number, address or location, which many felt was flippant.
What wasn’t included in the excerpt widely circulated on social media was her subsequent response, in which Lively said, “Unfortunately, we all know at least someone… who have experienced this,” going on to describe how often we know more than one person who is affected by domestic violence.
Sony has since defended promotion of the film.
“So many women put so much effort into this remarkable movie, working selflessly from the start to ensure that such an important subject matter was handled with care,” Sony Pictures Entertainment Chair-CEO Tony Vinciquerra told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement earlier this week.
