It Ends With Us is one of the most highly-anticipated adaptations of a literary work this year.

Based on the novel by Colleen Hoover, the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively film is directed by Baldoni and written by Christy Hall. The film also stars Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar and Amy Morton.

Like most book-to-screen projects, the film’s isn’t exactly the same as the novel, and this one introduces a twist of sorts and also makes a specific deviation from the source material.

What is the plot of It Ends With Us and its twist (which is a difference from the book)?

It Ends With Us revolves around a Boston flower shop owner, Lily Bloom Blossom (yes, that is her name) as she falls in love with charismatic and charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni), who just happens to be the brother of her new BFF and flower shop employee Allysa (Slate). The duo’s relationship blossoms and progresses pretty quickly, but things Lily starts to question her feelings as her high school sweetheart Atlas Corrigan (Sklenar) reenters her life by chance.

Flashbacks are shown of a younger Lily and Atlas, including how Lily helped him when he was homeless after seeing his mother being abused by a partner. Lily’s mother is also being abused by her father, and also nearly beats Atlas to death when he catches him in bed with Lily. As this Lily remembers how fond she is of Atlas and reconciles that with her relationship with Ryle, he begins to feel uneasy and slowly begins abusing her before she leaves him, and finds out she’s pregnant soon after. The film feels like two parts– one being the light, airy and swoon-worthy romance of Ryle and Lilly; the second being a serious drama about domestic violence.

A key difference here than in the book is how Lily (and the audience, in the first two instances) perceives Ryle’s violence against her. Due to quick camera angle cuts in the first instance of violence that he inflicts on her, unless you know the film is about domestic violence, you may not even realize that the abuse is taking place. This continues in a later scene, with the quick cuts and certain editing choices presenting the situations and ambiguous. You also see Lily’s POV, and she doesn’t see them as violence either. It’s not until one scene in particular in which Ryle tries to assault Lily and she escapes that it is blatant for both her, and the audiences. So for some viewers, this will be a twist of sorts to reveal that this whole time, abuse has been taking place.

How does It Ends With Us end?

Lily reveals to Allysa that Ryle has been abusing her. While she is in shock, Allysa also reveals the truth about a moment earlier in the film about her and Ryle’s brother dying. Ryle accidentally shot their brother when they were younger by accident when they were playing with a gun, and he was never the same again. Allysa then tells Lily that even though Ryle is her brother, if she stays with him, then she’ll never speak to her again.

After having their baby Emerson, named after Ryle’s late brother who he shot and killed accidentally, Lily tells Ryle that she wants a divorce, asking him a number of questions, including what would he say if Emerson told him that her boyfriend was abusing her. He understands what him trying to keep their family in tact would mean and concedes to Lily’s plea.

Time passes and Lily happens to run into Atlas while at a farmer’s market with Emerson, and it seems like they will try to rekindle their romance. Lily and her mother, Jenny (Morton) also visit her father’s grave along with Emerson. She leaves the blank paper from earlier in the film when she had nothing to say for his eulogy at his gravesite, seemingly finally putting generational abuse behind her.

This is the biggest difference between the film and book

All in all, It Ends With Us is a pretty faithful adaptation of the Hoover novel aside from a few things here and there (including Ryle’s assault attempt being more sinister in the book). However, what’s probably the biggest change is at the end. In the book, despite not getting back together, Ryle and Lily co-parent their daughter together. At the end of the movie, when Atlas and Lily reunite after some time, Lily tells at last that “it’s just the two of us,” her and Emerson. This means that Ryle is not in their lives at all.

There was supposed to be an ending similar to the book, but Baldoni ending up nixing it.

Why was the ending of It Ends With Us changed from the novel

“In the original draft, we had a scene in the epilogue where we see Ryle dropping off their child to Lily, and they have a short conversation,” he told TheWrap. “It was written in a way that showed that they’ve overcome a lot over the last two years. And I wasn’t fully comfortable with it. And No More wasn’t fully comfortable with it, and we were trying to find a way to make it work, to honor the book, but too much had to be done in such a short window to explain how they could possibly be co-parenting.”’

The actor/director and his team also thought about adding some lines about how Ryle was in therapy or utilizing another way of showing that he was working on himself.

Instead, Baldoni thought it would be better to have Ryle be cut off after meeting his daughter shortly after Lily had given birth in the hospital.

He explained, “I don’t want to open up a can of worms and have a conversation about, you know, should a man like Ryle be allowed to co-parent? You know, what’s an acceptable amount of work that that someone has to do in that situation? It was just way too much.” The truth is, from our research and from our partners, we know that the majority of men go back to being abusers, and that’s the fact. And then it didn’t feel right to tell a story about a man who was a minority in that, because that wouldn’t be honoring the original intention of why we were trying to tell the story. So the best ending for Ryle was to look at his wife and kid, and the life that he could have had, the life that he blew up, and to walk out the door and for us not see him again. And that was, for me, what felt the best in adapting the book and turning into a film is to say bye to him there.”

It Ends With Us is in theaters now.

If you or someone you know is battling suicidal ideation, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988. You can also text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.

Blake Lively

Get relevant content delivered to you once a week