Rania Adil

The cover of the book “It Ends With Us” with knowledge of its adaptation into a movie. “It Ends With Us” is a popular book amongst the reading community and has recently debuted its appearance as a film. “It was really interesting to look over the cover I’ve come so familiar with and picture a movie out of it.”

Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel “It Ends With Us” has been the center of much attention by readers worldwide since it was published in 2016, and the anticipated film adaptation recently made its debut in the film industry. A story of self-love, resilience and self-discovery transitions Hoover’s story from page to screen. With its narrative of a domestic abuse victim, the film is poised to be an emotional tour de France. As viewers trickle in, the opinions of the plot seem to skew from what was advertised.

“It Ends With Us” with an IMDb rating of 6.7/10, was not a popular hit among readers and movie-watchers when it came out in theaters on August 19th. Author Colleen Hoover, who has experience with domestic violence, has long reached the hits of New York Times Best Selling despite the controversy of her writing capabilities all over social media.

“The movie watered down the essence of the book,” senior Meg Allaka said. “I feel that because the book is labeled as young adult mature, and because the movie’s PG-13, the overall portrayal of the movie was toned down. I didn’t exactly love the movie, but it’s a good way to visualize characters if you’ve never read it before.”

Allaka, an avid reader and on the varsity swim team, was among the first to read “It Ends With Us” when it first gained popularity in the book world. Allaka created her own movie cast as each character was introduced and felt strongly about her choices. As she learned of the film adaptation at hand, she couldn’t wait to see what part of her imagination would come to life. As many readers were, Allaka was shocked by the change in the story and hesitantly decided to watch the movie. What started as a fear of casting decisions became a distaste towards the plot and execution of the movie.

“There’s been a lot of controversy behind the book, even before there was a movie,” senior Annabelle Koltak said. “I think this movie had a lot more attention and a lot more eyes [because of its following]. And then, when it turned out poorly, [there was] a bigger [response] because it was such a high-profile movie.” Koltak adds, “The romance to domestic violence ratio in that film was 80 to 20 where it should have really been 40 to 60.”

Koltak, a four-year theater student, shares that her view of the movie was biased as the media promoted the film in a way that took away from the importance of domestic violence awareness.

CPHS Librarian Keri Burns recalls reading “It Ends With Us” alongside the previous schools’ girl soccer team.

“I thought it was incredibly powerful that a book could have a group of previous non-readers captivated, entrenched and talking about it all the time,” Burns said. “[However], not a single person gave me any context for the book, or as we now call them, trigger warnings.”

The lack of awareness of the book’s sensitive subject has caused commotion among those reading the book or watching the movie. The topic of domestic violence is what the book is about, yet as the romanticizing of the characters and personal marketing tactics increase, many students agree that the topic and the awareness it is trying to promote take a backseat.

Commotions have previously been present in regards to Colleen Hoover as a writer, but as her book was made into a movie, it was lead actress Blake Lively who carried on this commotion. From focusing on her own brands, joking about the character’s hardships and rarely speaking on the issue of domestic violence, many viewers agree that Blake Lively took selfish advantage of the spotlight from the movie.

“[The director and Hoover] attempted to raise awareness,” Allaka said. “Do I think they actually did a good job with that? No, absolutely not. I think Blake Lively made a mockery of herself, the way she brushed off domestic violence in certain interviews and barely talked about it. The only person that I think talked about domestic violence was the director of the film.”

Movies made out of books often do not satisfy fan expectations successfully. The book-to-film adaptations today tend to pull away from the message of the books and prioritize publicity ploys.

“Cross branding and marketing is super common nowadays,” Burns said. “A lot of people, if they are influential, have their hands in a lot of different pies. I feel like a lot of celebrities who are in border portfolios and involved in different companies tend to do this.”

While “It Ends With Us” was not the first film to stray away from the message filmmakers were trying to raise awareness for, it had more attention than most because of its casting and book. However, successful page-to-screen transitions have been made before, such as “Atonement,” “Little Women” and “Pride and Prejudice,” according to Allaka and Koltak. 

It was a mutual consensus that the film let many down due to its lack of connection to the topic at hand.

“I think The movie ‘It Ends With Us’ fails to capture the depth and complexity of domestic violence,” Allaka said. “Justice isn’t served to the sensitive topics talked about in the book.”