SINGAPORE – I watched It Ends With Us (2024) at an early preview before its Singapore release on Sept 5 – and I do not get the hype.

The romance movie starring actress-producer Blake Lively and director-actor Justin Baldoni opened in cinemas here about a month after its release in the US on Aug 9. It has been subject to social media and critical drubbing, never mind that it has earned US$310 million (S$410 million) worldwide.

It is based on the 2016 best-selling novel of the same name by American author Colleen Hoover. The story follows Lily Bloom (Lively) as she falls in love with and marries the charming Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni) – and struggles to leave when he begins physically and emotionally abusing her. Recognising the abuse from growing up with a father who abused her mother, Lily is determined not to let the cycle continue in her life.

Hoover has called it “the hardest book I’ve ever written”, inspired by her childhood experience of growing up with domestic violence. She told the Daily Mail in 2023 that she remembers her father throwing a television set at her mother.

American publishing house Atria Books reported on Sept 9 that it has sold a total of 32 million copies across all formats since 2016.

Yet, I am among the group of avid readers who was never drawn to this book or its 2022 sequel, It Starts With Us.

The primary reason being that romance is simply not a genre that I gravitate towards. Plus the book was criticised for the perpetrators of abuse, namely Ryle, never facing any consequences for their actions. 

But I was open to watching the film to see if I could finally understand why other people loved the story so much. Spoiler alert: I still do not.

Here are five things from the hit movie that make little or no sense to me.

1. Retaining Ellen DeGeneres references from the book

In the book, Lily frequently writes to the comedienne and former American talk show host about her life in diary entries, starting from when she was a teenager and continuing into adulthood.

As a teen (Isabela Ferrer), she and her high-school sweetheart Atlas Corrigan (Alex Neustaedter) quote “just keep swimming” from the animated film Finding Nemo (2003) to each other as a means of encouragement.

In real life, DeGeneres, who voices the forgetful blue tang Dory in Finding Nemo, was accused in 2020 of creating a toxic work environment on the set of her long-running talk show, which ended in 2022.

In one movie scene, an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show is briefly seen and heard on TV.

Easter eggs aside, such creative choices are marred by the fact that DeGeneres has now been disgraced as an abuser.

2. Cringey love language

The so-called sexy rooftop scene where Ryle and Lily first meet is immediately off-putting when he declares he wants to bed her in the most out-of-pocket manner possible.

Later, when the two are friends, he coerces her into a kiss by telling her that it would “get you out of my system”. What is seen as a cute moment in which he is honest about his attraction to her is soured by the fact that he continues to push when she says no.

The biggest ick is when Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) tells Lily, while she is pregnant and coming to terms with her abusive marriage: “If you find yourself in a position to love someone again, just fall in love with me.”

3. Baby car seat facing the wrong way

In what is meant to be a heartwarming scene towards the end of the movie, Lily looks at her infant daughter Emerson through the rear-view mirror and the two exchange a smile.

While I am not a mother, I do know enough from being friends with mothers that the baby car seat is facing the wrong way. Children below the age of two should face the back to protect them from the impact of an accident.

Did no one on set pay attention to this detail, including the movie’s star and producer Lively? She herself is a mother of four kids aged one to nine.

4. The ‘gothic’ flower shop

Forgive me for not being quirky enough to see Lily Bloom’s as a trendy flower shop, but everything in the store looked half or mostly dead.

It is also far too cluttered, with flower pots hanging from the ceiling and plants overcrowding every surface. Plants need sufficient space to grow, and flower arrangements cannot be packed too tightly together to preserve the delicate petals.

5. Portrayal of domestic abuse does not ring true

The film, and what I know from skimming the novel, lacks the nuance and depiction of how abuse begins gradually in a relationship, slowly becoming the norm and often making a victim believe it is his or her own fault.

It also makes it seem easy for survivors to leave, something advocates have critiqued extensively, as Ryle tearfully lets Lily go when she gently confronts him.

Unlike most real-life abusers who have isolated their victims to the point of having no community, money or self-confidence to leave, Ryle does not put up a fight in the slightest. He quietly leaves a hospital room after witnessing Lily give birth and hold Emerson for the first time.

This is in stark contrast to local theatre group Wild Rice’s recent production Dive. The 90-minute play did more to show how one survives domestic violence by an abusive partner than the 131-minute film even attempted to.

Dive realistically depicts the love-bombing and gradual changes, first making demands for a partner to loudly declare his or her love in public and, years later, spam texting accusations of infidelity, masked by claims of deep love and concern.

The play shows the struggle of coming to terms with the knowledge that a partner is abusive, the difficulty in leaving and the fear of social alienation, all stretched over a decades-long marriage.

While I have never been in a physically abusive relationship, I was in an emotionally manipulative and abusive one with a male friend during my university years. It is not the same, yet I understand the difficulty of leaving someone who knows my private details, worrying that it can one day be used against me.

As much as It Ends With Us champions women to leave, the lack of a domestic abuse hotline at any point before or after the film makes the whole experience more like a romantic drama in which Lily leaves a bad man for a good one.

• It Ends With Us is showing in Singapore cinemas.