130 min | PG-13 | August 9, 2024 | Sony Pictures
Blake Lively stars in the adaptation of the Colleen Hoover phenomenon. The domestic violence subject matter is handled with more care than expected. The romance around it is handled with less.
Lily Bloom opens a flower shop in Boston. She meets Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon who is charming and intense and does not believe in relationships. They fall in love. Then Ryle hits her. Her first love, Atlas Corrigan, reappears. The film adapts Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel about the cycle of domestic violence and the difficulty of leaving an abusive partner. The subject matter is serious. The marketing sells it as a romance. That tension defines the film and not always in productive ways.
Blake Lively plays Lily with a warmth that works in the romantic scenes and a vulnerability that works in the violent ones. She is better here than she has been in years. Justin Baldoni directs and plays Ryle with a charm that curdles convincingly. The film does not excuse his violence and does not make him a cartoon villain. He is a man who hurts the woman he loves and is sorry every time. That specificity matters. Brandon Sklenar plays Atlas with steady kindness that contrasts with Ryle’s volatility. Jenny Slate provides comic relief as Lily’s friend.
Baldoni directs his second feature with competence and an earnest respect for the source material. The domestic violence scenes are filmed with restraint. The impact is felt without being exploitative. The flashback structure showing young Lily’s parents’ abusive relationship provides context without being heavy-handed. The Boston setting looks nice. The flower shop is aspirational. The production design leans into the romance-novel aesthetic that Hoover’s audience expects.
The film’s weakness is that it tries to be two things. It wants to be a serious film about domestic violence and a swooning romance. The tonal shifts between these modes create a dissonance that the script by Christy Hall does not resolve. The first love subplot pulls focus from the central relationship. The ending is earned but the journey there is uneven. The audience for this film already exists and will be satisfied. Whether the film transcends its source material is a different question. It does not quite get there.