There’s a ton of controversy surrounding It Ends With Us. From the way Blake Lively promoted it, to the heavy theme at the heart of it, to the very public feud happening between the two main stars. In case you haven’t seen it or heard, It Ends With Us is about a very serious topic: Domestic Violence. It doesn’t get heavier than that. The movie was based on a popular romance novel by Colleen Hoover. The best info I can find shows that it had a budget of $25 million.
My guess is that’s both the Production and Advertising Budget, but there’s no way to know for sure. As of this writing, it’s had a worldwide gross of $350,978,986.
In other words, it’s brought in about 14 times its budget. That’s the kind of major winner every investor wants to be a part of in Hollywood.
Before we get to the review, I need to discuss some important questions first:
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, an average of 24 people experience domestic abuse every minute in the US. If you do the math, it comes out to more than 12 million men and women per year. Over 1 in 3 women in the US has experienced domestic abuse and over 1 in 4 men has experienced domestic abuse in the US.
According to UNWomen, an estimated 736 million women globally have been subjected to domestic violence or non-partner violence. Most violence against women is perpetrated by current or former husbands or intimate partners. More than 640 million women (26 percent) aged 15 and older have been subjected to intimate partner violence.
The best I could find on global numbers of domestic violence committed against men is an extract from The National Library of Medicine which says, “The studies identified by the search yielded prevalence rates of 3.4% to 20.3% for domestic physical violence against men. Most of the affected men had been violent toward their partners themselves. 10.6–40% of them reported having been abused or maltreated as children.” Then it adds this very important sentence as to things to look out for: “Alcohol abuse, jealousy, mental illness, physical impairment, and short relationship duration are all associated with a higher risk of being a victim of domestic violence.”
As you can see, unfortunately, domestic violence is a big problem in the US and in the world. It’s one we all need to work toward ending. One of the great things about It Ends With Us is that it highlights the need to end domestic violence with our generation and not to let it continue to further generations.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline gives a long list and they all have to do with the abusive partner trying to establish or gain power and control through many different methods at many different moments:
Telling you that you never do anything right.
Showing extreme jealousy of your friends or time spent away from them.
Preventing or discouraging you from spending time with others, particularly friends, family members, or peers.
Insulting, demeaning, or shaming you, especially in front of other people.
Controlling finances in the household without discussion, such as taking your money or refusing to provide money for necessary expenses.
Pressuring you to have sex or perform sexual acts you’re not comfortable with.
Pressuring you to use drugs or alcohol.
Intimidating you through threatening looks or actions.
Insulting your parenting or threatening to harm or take away your children or pets.
Intimidating you with weapons like guns, knives, bats, or mace.
Call The National Domestic Violence Hotline to get started. They are available 24/7. You can find them here.
Something that was mentioned in It Ends With Us is how difficult it is to get out of an abusive relationship. But if the person you’re with is hurting you, you need to get out of that relationship immediately. Get a restraining order on the person. There’s no question that it will be very difficult to get out and I liked that they addressed that aspect of it in the movie. But if you are in an abusive relationship, please get out.
One of the most famous stories of domestic violence comes from John and Lorena Bobbitt. These two had some serious problems and handled their problems completely the wrong way. I think it’s valuable to understand their relationship and learn how abuse escalates over time so we can be aware of it and put an end to a relationship that is turning abusive immediately. Plus, there is a ton about the story the vast majority of people do not know.
As a young man, John Bobbitt enlisted in the Marines and, it was at a Marine Corps officers’ ball in 1988 that he first met Lorena Gallo.
“I was there with a friend and saw her over there,” John Bobbitt recalled. “And she looks shy and innocent, and I went over there and asked her to dance. She can barely speak English… [and] I go, ‘Here’s my number.’”
Born in Ecuador and raised in Venezuela, Lorena Gallo was in the United States on a student visa. Blair Howard, Lorena’s longtime attorney, told ABC News that she thought John was “an absolute gentleman” when they first met.
They started dating, but then John Bobbitt said she and her mother started pushing the idea of marriage as her visa was about to expire. Feeling “pressured,” he said, he agreed to marry her.
“Had to bite the bullet, I guess, get married,” he said.
Lorena told ABC News in 1993 that it was John who proposed to her and made no mention of her visa expiring.
A modest wedding ensued, with a justice of the peace. He was dressed in his Marines uniform. She wore a white wedding gown.
“I was happy,” Bobbitt said, looking back on his wedding day.
Did he love her? “Well,” he said, “I thought I did.”
The couple settled down in Manassas, Virginia. By 1991, John Bobbitt had been discharged from the Marines, but had trouble finding a steady job. Lorena Bobbitt was working as a nanny for Janna Bisutti, the owner of a local beauty salon, and eventually became a manicurist at her shop.
“She said she loved him and she wanted her marriage to work,” Bisutti told ABC News in a 1993 interview. “She was going to do anything to try to make her marriage work.”
With her steady job, Lorena became the main breadwinner of the family. The couple started off in a studio apartment, but John Bobbitt said she wanted more, which strained their marriage.
“We were young,” he said. “We should have worked our way up. But no, she wanted more, more, more. So, we went from a studio to a luxury apartment and we had two new cars.”
“[We] fought over things that we shouldn’t have [been] fighting over,” he recalled.
Lorena Bobbitt’s attorney Blair Howard told ABC News that she said John was never abusive to her while they were dating, but that changed after they got married.
In 1993, Lorena told ABC News she and John were just one month into their marriage when he hit her for the first time. As time went on, she said he would punch her — and even choked her one time during a fight.
John said the two of them would fight but he claimed he never abused her. He also claimed that Lorena was the one who would punch him, and he said he never fought back and only tried to “subdue her or restrain her.”
“Not to hit her,” he said. “I mean if we get in a fight and you jump on me and start hitting me, and I try to subdue you, you’re going to end up getting some type of injury, like a bruise or fat lip.”
He described Lorena as jealous and possessive.
“She got upset … if anybody talked to me,” he said. “Any girl or [if] I looked in a girl’s direction and she will get mad. Just POW, she’d punch me,” he continued. “She’d get mad. She was just a very jealous person… very possessive. Did not want anybody around me. I think she was always afraid someone was going to take me away from her. Like, I was her prize. And, ‘This is my man. This is my Marine. This is my ticket.’”
Lorena Bobbitt previously told ABC News that being Catholic, she didn’t believe in divorce and couldn’t leave him because she didn’t want her marriage to fail.
Their fights escalated at times. They called the police on each other.
Kim Chinn, a now-retired sergeant with the Prince William County Police Department, said officers responded to complaints of domestic violence at the Bobbitts’ apartment “about half a dozen times” when they were together.
“Only in one instance were charges brought,” Chinn told ABC News. “We arrested John and charged him with assault and battery, and he got a cross-warrant against Lorena and charged her with assault and battery. One of their charges was null-crossed and the other one dismissed.”
During their marriage, Lorena admitted to shoplifting dresses from a Nordstrom store, for which she did community service, and stealing around $7,000 from Bisutti, her friend and employer. Bisutti found out, and made her pay the money back.
“She abused Janna Bisutti by stealing all that money,” John Bobbitt said. “She didn’t need to do that. Especially with somebody who brought her in, gave her a job, fed her. And we were close friends of hers.”
Then Lorena learned that she was pregnant. She told ABC News in 1993 that she was excited to have a child, but that John told her he didn’t think she was up to the task of motherhood.
She got an abortion, and told ABC News in 1993 that she was afraid if she didn’t, John would leave her.
“We weren’t ready anyway,” John Bobbitt recalled. “So, I suggested we should wait. She wasn’t happy about it, but, you know, what can you do?”
Over the course of their marriage, Lorena claimed John forced her into having sex and raped her several times.
“The pushing, shoving, a punch here, punch there,” her attorney Blair Howard told ABC News. “And then she said it carried over into the bedroom, that he seemed to be very stimulated, excited by violent sex.”
“It was frequently,” Lorena Bobbitt said in 1993. “It was every time he will hit me, he will just try to force me into the sex again. It will be in the floor. He just trapped me. I feel trapped.”
Eventually, she decided to go to the police to get a protective order against him, but left before it was processed.
John Bobbitt denies ever raping his wife or being excited by violent sex.
By the time Lorena Bobbitt was inquiring about a protective order against her husband, John Bobbitt said he had already asked her for a divorce. John was 26 years old at the time, Lorena was 24.
“That hurt her,” John Bobbitt said. “It hit her like a ton of bricks. She was crying and she was begging. She said she didn’t believe in divorce, but I said, ‘It’s pointless. I mean what’s the point of staying married? You’re not happy. I’m not happy.’”
While they were sorting out who would get to stay in the apartment, John Bobbitt said, he invited his friend Robert Johnston from Buffalo, New York, to come down and stay with them. It was June 22, 1993, and he and Johnston decided to hit the town.
“I said, ‘Well, since, you’re here, let’s go out and have some fun,” he recalled. “Let’s go hang out and I’ll show you around D.C.,’ We went out and had drinks… We hang out and meet people and talk and have a good time. And then late in the morning, we head home.”
By the time he and Johnston returned to the Bobbitts’ apartment in the early hours of June 23, Lorena Bobbitt was asleep, but was woken up by her husband slamming a door, she said in the 1993 interview.
“She had some literature on rape that she had read that night and [had] put it on the nightstand and gone to sleep,” her attorney Blair Howard told ABC News. “And he comes in… loaded to the gills with alcohol. And he decides to crawl in bed, help himself because, you know, ‘That’s my wife. I do with her what I want.’”
Lorena said that John Bobbitt came into their bedroom, jumped on top of her, forcibly ripped off her underwear and raped her.
John Bobbitt claims that Lorena was lying in their bed awake when he got home that night but he didn’t speak to her. He just laid down and went to sleep, he said, but claims she started making sexual advances.
When asked if they had sex that night, Bobbitt said he knew “some petting [was] going on that night,” but “no sex.”
“I remember her trying to play with me. You know? But I was sleeping,” he said. “I was exhausted, and I couldn’t respond to her advances either sexually or verbally.”
He claims he never raped her.
“Never raped anybody in my life,” he said. “Everything was done in my sleep. The sexual advances, the talking… all in a deep sleep.”
“No idea what happened,” he added.
Lorena claimed that after he raped her that night, she went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. That’s when she saw the knife.
“It was so many things coming into my mind,” she told ABC News in 1993. “I don’t know how to describe [it]. “Things like, from the very first day he hit me. Things about the abortion… things that …when he was torturing me, when he was beating me up. When he has forced sex with me, everything, it just came so fast.”
“I pick up the knife and I … I went back to the bedroom. I took the sheets off and I cut him,” she said. “Everything went just fast.”
John Bobbitt claims he was asleep when his wife cut him.
“I sprung up and I was bleeding, I was applying pressure, then immediately I thought it was something out of a horror movie,” John said. “A nightmare… turned into reality.”
Bobbitt said he was “horrified. Terrified,” and thought “I was going to die. That was it, [I’m] going to die.”
Lorena fled the apartment, holding the knife in one hand and her husband’s penis in the other. She got into her car and drove off. She said she was in such a state over what she had done that she didn’t realize at first that she was still holding the penis when she got into her car.
“I remember I couldn’t make a turn because my hands [had] something on them, and so I tried to turn but then I saw that I have it in my hand,” Lorena recalled in 1993. “I looked at it and I scream, and… I throw it out of the window. I just drive it as fast as I could.”
Lorena eventually drove over to Bisutti’s house where, Bisutti says, Lorena collapsed in hysterics and the police were called.
Meanwhile, John Bobbitt said he told his friend Johnston to take him the hospital. Johnston started screaming “as soon as he saw the blood everywhere,” Bobbitt said. “He was going crazy,” and he got him to Prince William Hospital in about “10 minutes.”
“Walking into the hospital, the [emergency room] doctor is — you know — looking at me, [and says] ‘show me your wrist.’” The doctor initially thought that all the blood had flowed from a wound to his arm, John said.
“Of course, John knew there was no cut there,” his plastic surgeon, Dr. David Berman, told ABC News. “And he [the doctor] goes ‘where’s all the blood coming from?’ and John points down below.”
When the sheet covering him fell away, John said the emergency doctor’s “jaw dropped.”
“Really all I knew about this on the way into the hospital was that a penis had been amputated and the organ was missing,” Dr. James Sehn, John’s urologist said.
“I’m not a vindictive person because I told them where it was,” Lorena Gallo, as she is now known, said. By “them” she means the police who, sometime after 4:30 a.m., clutched their loins and went digging through the overgrown roadside grass for the missing member. They found it, put it on ice in a Big Bite hot dog box from a nearby 7-Eleven and rushed it to the hospital.
The main focus of the surgery, Berman said, was reconnecting the arteries, veins and nerves so that Bobbitt would have sensation and blood flow to the organ.
“The biggest concern I had is, simply, that it had to work. There was no second chance,” Berman said. “I’ve never seen a penile replantation. They’re extremely rare… But I had done a lot of microsurgeries. So, I’d put a lot of fingers back on, and… It was just this particular application was different.”
After a nine-hour surgery, Berman and Sehn were able to successfully reattach Bobbitt’s penis and return it to normal function.
“It remains the most interesting and dramatic case I’ve ever done in my life,” Berman said. “It kind of really blew a lot of people’s imaginations away with what could be done.”
Lorena Bobbitt was arrested and charged with malicious wounding and faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted. She pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
Her story quickly drew in hundreds of supporters who saw her as a survivor who had taken extreme measures against her alleged abuser. The sensational case pushed domestic violence back into the national conversation.
Meanwhile, John Bobbitt was arrested and charged with marital sexual assault based on Lorena’s claims that he had raped her. He pleaded not guilty.
“I was innocent,” he said. “I didn’t know why I was there [in court].”
He was acquitted in November 1993. There were no cameras allowed in the courtroom because it was a sexual assault case. But the media was allowed to broadcast Lorena’s trial, and it ballooned into wall-to-wall coverage of one of the most epic “he said, she said” cases of its time.
While on the witness stand at her trial, John Bobbitt seemed to have trouble responding to questions related to allegations of domestic abuse.
“It was a battle. I think, you know, I got a little cocky,” he said. “I didn’t know how to explain it, and I was frustrated. I didn’t know how to explain the story.”
Lorena Bobbitt’s defense team argued that she was a battered woman who had snapped and the attack was the result of an “irresistible impulse.” She testified then that she didn’t remember the cutting.
Multiple witnesses testified that they saw John Bobbitt physically abuse Lorena Bobbitt. Other witnesses testified that they had seen bruises on Lorena Bobbitt and were told John Bobbitt had caused them.
The prosecution argued that Lorena attacked the person she thought was threatening her dream to live in America because John wanted to divorce her.
“She didn’t want the marriage to end,” John said. “She wanted to keep the marriage. She wanted to– everything that she dreamed about. And it was falling apart. And she wanted either to keep it together. If she couldn’t, then she was going to retaliate.”
“She was hurt deeply, emotionally,” he added. “And she was acting on that.”
On Jan. 22, 1994, the jury found Lorena Bobbitt not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. She was ordered to spend five weeks at a mental hospital for treatment and evaluation.
“Everybody was shocked,” John Bobbitt said. “Couldn’t believe it. That she just—how can somebody get away with it?”
After Lorena Bobbitt was released from the state hospital, she sat down for a second interview with ABC News in March 1994, in which she said both she and John “were victims of a tragic situation.”
But John Bobbitt doesn’t see it that way.
“I don’t believe that,” he said. “I don’t believe she was a victim. No. She was just greedy, selfish and she was stubborn.”
After John’s trial ended in 1993, he embarked on a 40-city media tour, doing concert appearances, events and giving interviews to radio talk shows, including multiple interviews on “The Howard Stern Show.”
One night, John was at a Playboy party at the Wet’n’Wild club in Las Vegas when he met adult film star Ron Jeremy, he recalled.
“[We] got into talking about doing an adult film,” John said.
Jeremy, who wrote and directed an adult film starring John, described it as “a comedy.”
“It was based on true fact,” he told ABC News. “She had the knife behind her back, and I had the light glisten off the knife, and people [were] saying to me, ‘Nice effect, Ron.’”
The two surgeons who had reattached Bobbitt’s penis were intrigued by Bobbitt’s decision to make the film.
“It’s not often our surgical work is displayed in that fashion,” Sehn noted.
Berman said he watched the film as well.
“I couldn’t not see it,” he said. “I mean, it’s my work.”
“I don’t think [John doing the film] was the wisest choice,” Berman said. “But obviously, from my standpoint, it gives credibility to the fact that it does work, and it worked very well.”
John went on to star in two adult films: John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut and John Wayne Bobbitt’s Frankenpenis.
Proving once again that the world makes no sense.
After his stint as an adult film star, John Bobbitt went on to work a number of odd jobs, including construction work and truck driving. He also faced a number of domestic battery charges brought against him by two other women and served some jail time for them.
He denied all of these allegations to ABC News. He chalked up his troubles to “falling in love too fast” and “not getting to know the person I’m with, and their motives.”
“After the case, I would attract all the wrong people,” he said. “And I didn’t have that just—discernment of picking and choosing wisely.”
Meanwhile, Lorena returned to a quiet life as a manicurist in Manassas and became an advocate for domestic violence survivors. In 2007, she started a foundation that raises money for domestic abuse victims and their children.
The couple officially divorced in 1995 after six years of marriage.
Today, John Bobbitt still lives in Las Vegas and has since pursued other passions, including searching for the famed Fenn Treasure, rumored to be hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains by a New Mexico art dealer and collector named Forrest Fenn.
“I might know where the treasure chest is,” Bobbitt said. “[I have] a lot of good clues, really.”
He said he has seen Lorena only once since her trial – at a 2009 appearance on the TV tabloid show, “The Insider,” where he revealed that he still harbored feelings for her.
Today, he says, “I loved the woman she was,” and says he has now moved on.
Lorena did some press, but mostly resisted offers to turn their castration saga into a film or TV series. She turned down $1 million to pose for Playboy. “A million dollars is a million dollars,” she said. “It would’ve been amazing. But I wasn’t raised that way.”
These days, the attention Lorena gets in her hometown is mostly positive. A woman who recognized her from a Zumba class ran up to her. “Lorena, right? My father-in-law has the biggest crush on you!” she said.
She smiled politely and posed for the photo. Because even though she didn’t want John, who, according to Lorena, continued to show up at her nail salon after the trial and still writes her love letters, to control her life, she knows that she cannot run from that phallic last name, not when you are Lorena in Manassas. “I know I am still Lorena Bobbitt,” she said. “That name you know, it’s very important here.”
In 1994, after she served a brief, mandated stint in a mental hospital, Lorena went back to her life as a manicurist. She later did hair and sold real estate. She attended her Catholic church regularly and went to community college where she met David Bellinger. The two were study partners and friends for years before they became romantically involved. She never dated anyone else, she said, because, well, how can you date, really, when you are that Lorena? The couple now have a 13-year-old daughter and live on a tidy street in a cream-colored brick house.
The Story of John and Lorena Bobbitt is tragic. Abuse leads to more abuse. It’s a terrible cycle. My heart goes out to anyone who is experiencing abuse in their relationship right now and I beg you to get yourself out of that relationship immediately.
This is a great question that a lot of men and even some women have. I had to do some serious digging to try to find a really good answer. There were a lot of answers that I felt got close, but the best answers came from Teal Swan. She’s a Youtuber with a pretty large following. I think she really has hit the nail on the head with regard to why so many women date and marry jerks:
“’Nice guys’ tend to be passive, submissive, inactive, and retreating. They tend to follow instead of lead. They can be codependent and insecure. They’re usually always agreeable to the degree that they lack boundaries and a sense of what’s actually good or safe. They tend to feel energetically small and therefore unable to protect and [safely] contain a woman.
“To the opposite, men who are masculine tend to take the leadership role. They’re protective, they have direction in life, they’re creative, they are strong, they tend to provide, they have good social skills, they have drive, they’re encouraging, possess charisma and confidence, they tend to have high energy levels, they take positive ownership of the woman in their life, they take action, they provide [safe] containment for the feminine.
“In other words, it has nothing to do with whether or not a guy is nice. In fact, when men say, ‘Well, no woman really wants me because I’m a nice guy.’ That’s actually just a cop-out. It’s a way of avoiding looking at the real issue which is the fact that men who say that lack these qualities which women need in a relationship in order to feel good. And guess what: You really need to separate niceness from this whole conversation we’re having because a guy could have all of those [masculine] traits and be a super nice guy and pretty much every woman would prefer that guy.
“So, the real question is: Why would a woman choose an a**hole with those traits over a nice guy without those traits?
“The first thing we’re going to look at is biology . . . What I’m about to tell you is an element of female biology that does not need to be ‘fixed.’ We may prefer to have evolution have changed this already, but it’s not the reality.
“For a woman, physically, attraction is about matching up with a person who will protect you, produce healthy offspring, and provide for you and those offspring. The man is your ticket to survival.”
“No matter how much the modern world has changed and no matter how much feminists absolutely hate looking at that truth, it’s still the truth for women today on a physical biological level.
“A vulnerable male leaves a woman in the position to feel like she has to do it all herself and fend for herself. This means that a male who lacks masculinity or those masculine traits which a woman needs in a relationship in order to feel good, she ultimately feels alone, or at best, with a nice sidekick or servant. But, with a sidekick or servant at best, she’s not with somebody who can actually [safely] contain and protect her. And so, in fact, all the pressure of the world is on her and that’s not a natural state of being for a physical female.
“Also, for women, fear is woven into her biological experience. It is encoded in her entire nervous system. Essentially, fear is the baseline experience for women on earth whether they are aware of it or not. And guess what: When a woman has people [she] cares about, like a partner and like children, this fear only multiplies . . .
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how nice a guy is if he can’t provide a woman with the feeling that she is contained. She will feel exposed to the world and, therefore, like there’s nothing between herself and all the various threats in the world.”
“On top of this, most of these masculine traits are associated so strongly with testosterone, things like confidence. And the reality is, higher testosterone levels the more [a woman] will be attracted to a man, especially, when a woman’s ovulating.”
“Nice guys finish last . . . I’m going to tell you right now it’s because no woman wants a weak male. It is disgusting. I’m going to just be honest with you because most women aren’t honest . . . This is what you’ve got to understand. Women don’t want an a**hole . . . No woman wants an a**hole.
“A lot of the men who have ignored the social moral standards and who aren’t captive in the web of ‘How I must behave in order to be perceived by other people.’ These are the kind of guys who move forward, despite how other people feel. So, a lot of the people who do have that forward moving energy, [who we’re equating to being] not a nice guy, they are the ones who are able to put all of their energy into something and move completely forward. And what we know about masculine energy, especially, is that it is a forward moving energy first and foremost. It is the energy of encouragement, it is the energy of providing. It is literally forward moving, like crazy. Femininity tends to be more receptive, open . . .
“When it comes to polarity, no woman is attracted to a receptive type of individual. And receptivity in a male doesn’t feel like, ‘Oh, I’m open to what you think.’ No. When I’m talking receptivity in a male in the negative sense, it’s passivity. And that makes a female turned off—there’s no polarity. And it makes us feel unprotected and as if there is not going to be anything that this male can do in our lives or for us.
“Basically, ‘nice men’—men that are considering themselves nice have zero ownership whatsoever and that is never going to turn a woman on . . . It’s very important for the forward moving energy of the masculine . . . to take ownership of the people in their lives. Now, when they do that it’s almost like they put a container, and it’s a safe container, around the people in their lives. This is different than control . . . To really genuinely own something, you have to take it as a part of yourself. Now I know that you all know of the a**hole who’s horrible in relationships but he takes completely perfect care of his mint condition Ferrari. That is the degree to which taking something as part of yourself has to happen but within the context of relationships for a guy to be a good guy but also super-forward moving go-getter type of guy . . .
“The masculine is so out of alignment right now, I have no words for you . . . Femininity too, but honestly, femininity will come into alignment with masculinity coming into alignment . . . Masculinity might as well be in the ICU on the planet today with how much is wrong with it and how much we have destroyed it and how much society has gone against it . . .
“But usually, the nice guys don’t know how to be nice and move forward at the same time—they don’t know how to be nice and actually invite their masculinity at the same time. And we have to take responsibility as women. When men started to go into shadow masculinity what we did is we killed the masculine . . . This is what happens in history. Men who are primarily out of alignment because of the things they’re starting to do they started to take that energy that is very much a controlling and ownership type of energy and they started to go to the shadow with it. When men go to the shadow with it, you’re looking at forms of manipulative control, you’re looking at outright violence, and you’re looking at all the things that which, women, of course, have been oppressed by for thousands of years.
“Now, what women did because physically we are not actually capable of coming up against that thousands of years ago is we took revenge on our sons. We basically raised them to not be men. And that’s where we went completely out of alignment. We actually got rid of the male and we raised little boys, essentially, who had the brakes on to such a degree that they couldn’t be men anymore and now we’ve lost traction for them completely.
“And to be honest, we’ve gotta come out of this because right now we’re headed toward a world where men have no value. That should scare the c*** out of everybody, including women. We’re actually headed towards a world where women do everything and the only reason for a man is sperm donation. Now, this is not truth. I mean, it’s not a good thing we’re headed in this direction because we’re taking for granted the valuable things that we desperately need out of masculine energy. But we have to be aware that we’ve all headed there and so both men and women play a part in the destruction of masculinity and thus the destruction of femininity came along with it as a natural 1-2 step.
“But I’m going to contradict. Even though it seems like these men who are not good guys who are forward moving, get everything, and get the girls too—it’s not accurate. It’s just the norm. It is fully possible for a guy who is genuinely a good guy to move completely forward with his energy, take complete ownership, and be fully in the masculine. He would be the hottest man on the face of this earth. He could get as much sex as he wanted, but he probably wouldn’t want just sex, would he, if he was in alignment with the masculine.
“There is a weakness which has nothing to do with being sweet, it has to do with the way that they behave in general . . . It is impossible to be turned on by these men. It’s impossible to feel matched by these men . . . I’m telling you, literally, to be in alignment as a female, you have got to let yourself be led by someone. And so, these types of men, who are super super sweet, they can’t frickin’ lead you. They can’t do it. And when push comes to shove and it’s a difficult situation, that sucker’s gonna let you be the one in charge. That is scary as h*** as a female. So, that is the main reason why as a female there is no way in h*** I would go for a ‘sweet guy’ over a guy who’s aggressive . . . We would rather have both.
“When a man is able to create that containment, meaning with his strength and his forward moving energy he’s able to create a safe space for a female . . . what it enables a female to do is to go into receptivity and the energy is a bit of a flower blooming inside of a box.”
“I’m gonna be aggressive because nobody wants to hear this, because what you want me to say today is: ‘Actually, being a single mother is totally possible.’ It actually isn’t. It was never meant to happen for the human race, number one. Number two: Single biggest determiner of whether [a person] is a good mother, what do you think it is? This is gonna blow your mind when I tell you the answer.
“The major argument for good dads is actually: Can the dad be there for the mom?
“Because it’s like a direct chain . . . What you see is that if you’ve got a father figure basically, who is supportive to the mother, the mother’s energy goes towards the children.
“But the second she doesn’t have that supportive energy she collapses . . . and then the kids get starved.
“[Those who grew up with a single mom are] victim[s] of a society that was never meant to work this way.”
“I’m going to hit you out of the bat with something that most feminists are going to hate. Ready for this? Women want to be owned. they just don’t want to be controlled.
“So many women, in fact most women, would rather choose to be owned, even if that comes with the side dish of being controlled, than to be completely free, but having to fend for themselves all the time . . .
“Let’s talk about positive ownership . . . because you’ve got so many negative projections on the idea of ownership. To positively own something is to take it as a part of yourself. Obviously, if something’s a part of you it belongs to you in some way, right? However, when something becomes a part of you, it is impossible to hurt that thing without hurting yourself. It’s impossible for it not to be a priority to act in that thing’s best interest. This means with true positive ownership, the best interests of that thing is your utmost concern.
“So, let’s apply this to men and women. When a masculine energy takes positive ownership of a female, the best interest of that female is the man’s utmost concern. Guess what: This makes a woman feel safe and secure.”
For those who believe in the Bible, I believe this is the true meaning behind the symbolism of Eve being made from Adam’s rib.
Teal Swan is very clear in her answer as to why women date and marry jerks. It’s a message feminists absolutely despise, but it’s the truth. She outlines several other possible reasons so many women date and marry jerks:
“1. We get our subconscious definition of love from our childhood home. This means that if little girls had a**holes for daddies, there is a likelihood that they will actually associate more love in an environment with an a**hole than with a nice guy.
“2. There is a dynamic in some women, especially women who have extremely low self-esteem, where if they encounter a man who is aloof and who refuses to commit, it actually triggers her own feelings of not being good enough and that causes an automatic reaction of a desperate need to actually prove that she’s good enough . . . and she begins to chase his approval. She tries to get him to want her and to commit to her.
“3. There’s a sad element to codependency. Now, a lot of women develop in their lives a strategy of codependency in their relationships. Now, one of the elements of codependency is you’ve got such a deep level of shame that you don’t actually feel like you’re worthy of being with somebody who is good or who is functional . . . It also serves as an externalized way of fixing and loving the part of them they think is completely unlovable.
“4. A lot of women believe that a**holes are actually more straightforward than the nice guys. There’s a lot of talk in the female world that ‘nice guys’ only complain about the fact that girls don’t like them and like a**holes instead because they are upset that their nice guy behavior doesn’t get them laid more. Meaning that nice guys might just be every bit as much of an a**hole, but a manipulative covert one. Women actually see niceness often, as an act, a way of bribing her to give him what he wants.”
Teal Swan explained a lot of these concept super well. Women love men who are confident, dominant, masculine, unpredictable, exciting, and who don’t care what others think.
There is another important aspect of “Nice Guys” that is very common today. It’s a massive mistake that all the “Nice Guys” make. You ready for this:
When a man puts a woman on a pedestal, she can only look down on him. Women are only attracted to men who are better than them in pretty much every way. Women want men to make more money than them, be smarter than them, be stronger than them, etc. So, when a man puts a woman on a pedestal, it signals to her that she is better than him and thus she can never be attracted to that man.
The fact of the matter is few women actually are good women.
I’m going to blow pretty much every man’s mind right now. Women are super horny and they love and want sex really bad. If you don’t believe me, check out this video or just ask Reddit, Quora, or Google.
The fact that women are super horny doesn’t make them bad people, it’s what comes next that makes so many of them bad people.
A ton of women have high body counts (how many men they’ve had sex with) that are in the double digits or even triple digits. Furthermore, a ton of women are cheating on their boyfriends are even their husbands. If you don’t believe me, check out this video where women admit to their real body count (for the most part) and explain that they cheated on their ex but never told him. Here are two videos (one, two) of women who got caught cheating on their husbands.
There is a growing notion on the internet that women actually cheat more than men (you can check out this video and this video). It’s hard to know for sure what the truth is because people never fess up to cheating until they’ve been caught. So, it’s only much later after the fact that we can know what was really happening all along.
An article from the National Library of Medicine says this: “This study established a strong association between number of sex partners and later substance disorder, especially for women, which persisted beyond prior substance use and mental health problems more generally.”
So, we have a medical study stating that when it comes to women, there is an association between a higher body count and mental health problems as well as substance abuse.
The fact of the matter is that women lie about their body count. It is almost always much higher than what she says it is. If you don’t believe me, check out this video from Olivia Alexa.
My point with all this is that women are having a lot more sex, in fact, a ton more sex than men are aware of. Along with all this sex is the fact that a ton of these women have serious mental problems. In essence, men should not put women on a pedestal. This is evidenced by what women really do and who they really are.
Women who have a high body count have no self-control. That’s a fact. Trust is the foundation of a relationship. Self-control is the basis of trust. If either person in a relationship does not have self-control, that relationship will inevitably deteriorate and will eventually come to an end. If women do not practice self-control while having strong sexual urges before marriage (the same is true for men) there is no possible way they will be able to exercise self-control when they are experiencing strong sexual urges once they are married. So, women who have a high body count not only are much more likely to have mental health problems and substance abuse problems, but they are also more likely to cheat on their husband.
I wish women having a high body count, mental health problems, substance abuse problems, and cheating was the end of it, but it’s not.
A ton of women are highly manipulative. Manipulation comes in many forms. Ultimately, people manipulate another to get what they want while using the other person. Here’s a video of a woman telling women they should have three men.
She says a woman should have #1: Her main boyfriend. Then women should have #2: Her side piece. Then a woman should have #3: Her backup.
Translation: Guy #1 is the guy with money who spends a ton of his time making money and thus is not able to spend much time with his woman. Guy #2 is the hot guy who treats her like garbage that she only has sex with. And Guy #3 is the Nice Guy who she does not have sex with but who fills her need for time, attention, and emotional connection.
Guys, are you seeing this? Are you seeing how women are using you and manipulating you? She is literally using every single man. Honestly, it makes me sick that this is what women have allowed themselves to become.
Guys, you cannot allow yourself to give a woman a ton of your time, attention, and emotional connection if she will not be in relationship with you. DO NOT DO IT. She is using you. In essence, you become her ATTENTION SLUT. That is literally what is happening. She is taking advantage of you and using you to fill her need for attention and emotional connection. She has zero desire to be in a relationship with you. If a woman won’t go on dates with you, forget about her and date other women who will. If you allow a woman to use you in this way, she will do it every single time all while thinking you’re super weak because you aren’t dropping her like a bad habit. That’s the way they think. You’ve been warned.
The fact of the matter is that a ton of women out there do not care about men at all. Not one bit. If you don’t believe me, here’s a video every man on planet earth needs to watch of women saying how they only care about a man’s money.
So, women manipulate one man for his money, another for his time and attention, and a third for his body. For all the complaining women do about how terrible men are, this is much worse in many ways.
How does all this end? Quite predictably. A ton of women get married to a good man who slaves his life away for years or even decades trying to provide for her and her children. Then, at some point, the wife gets a little bored and asks for a divorce when there was nothing really wrong with the relationship.
Here are two videos (one, two) of women who’ve asked for a divorce then regretted it.
Basically, a ton of women spend their twenties and thirties using men, one after another, never caring about any of them.
But an interesting thing happens. She gets a divorce from a good husband in her late 30’s or 40’s then thinks she’s going to live it up. Sure, she has a bunch of meaningless sex with guys, but no man will commit to her. So, she ends up flooding her pillow every night with how lonely she is. You can check out this video or this video to see the truth of it.
So, they get the consequences of their decisions to use men over the years. It’s interesting though, how her tears are not about how she’s seriously emotionally damaged her own children or about how she’s destroyed her relationship with a good man or even about how she’s humiliated herself and lost all credibility. No, instead her tears are only about her—about how she is lonely.
Guys, are you seeing this? Are you seeing what so many women are really like?
There are so few good women out there that as men, we have to do a lot of examination and re-examination of a woman before we marry her. We can’t just close our eyes and jump in and hope it will be okay. We have to make a sound logical decision based on evidence and we cannot afford to avoid red flags.
There is no shortage of videos on the internet where women reveal who they really are. The fact of the matter is that most women lie all the time about who they really are and what they’ve really done because they know society would shame them and they’d have no friends and no men to exploit.
My point with all this is that if you’re a guy out there and you’re putting women on a pedestal, you clearly have no concept of who and what women really are. Women put on an innocent angelic act. That’s all it is. It’s an act. It’s a façade. They do it because it’s what society expects from them. They also do it because it’s useful to manipulate men. Most women absolutely do not care about men at all and they don’t care about women either. Feminism has taught women that they are their own gods. Their every whim and desire must be fulfilled even if they must destroy everyone else—including the man they’re married to and their children, including their own unborn children. It’s a very sad state a lot of women have gotten to.
If you don’t believe me, check out this video from Sadia Khan, a female Psychologist and Youtuber who said,
And Narcissists they are. As well as Machiavellian.
Here’s her entire quote because it is spot on: “We’ve created a generation of narcissistic women. And what’s happened is the rise of social media and the rise of online dating has taught women that they are not to blame for any poor choices. Every poor choice is glamorized and every internal reflection is seen as gaslighting yourself so they’ve even got terms for internal reflection and to prevent it happening. And so, we don’t take any accountability and as a result when we get into relationships if we don’t feel completely soothed all the time, he must be a narcissist.”
By having high body counts, cheating on their boyfriends and husbands, being narcissistic, Machiavellian, and manipulative women have gone into shadow feminism. I don’t mean every single woman. But it’s clear a ton of women have gone into shadow feminism.
Because this is happening, a lot of men have quit women. Many have stopped dating women altogether. 63% of males under the age of 30 are single, compared to 34% of women in the same age bracket.
When you honestly analyze what women have become and the severe financial punishments men get for divorce, it’s hard to blame them.
Sadia Khan is hitting on a major aspect of women choosing to date and marry jerks that literally no one is talking about. Here’s the bold truth:
When’s the last time you ever heard a woman say, “I chose wrong. I simply chose wrong. I always choose the jerks.”
Never.
This is the way it goes.
Man treats woman like garbage. Woman stiff-arms all of the guys in her friend zone who would treat her well and chooses to date and marry the man who treats her like garbage. Man abuses woman. Woman says she’s the victim.
What is that called?
Stupidity.
I mean, really?
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s absolutely awful that any man would abuse a woman. It’s absolutely terrible. It should never happen. But if we’re being honest with ourselves, the fact that we’re even having this conversation is because so many women choose to date guys who treat them terrible then turn around and play the victim card when those same men abuse them. Then they say, “All men are jerks.”
I’m sorry. What? You left 5-10 guys (or more) in your friendzone who would’ve treated you well then you chase after the one guy who treats you terrible. No, I’m sorry, all guys are not jerks. But the fact of the matter is, it seems a lot of women love being treated terribly. It seems like they love being treated like garbage. How could they possibly think they’re not going to be abused by a man that treats them like garbage? There is just a major disconnect between their thinking and reality. Then they get upset when the guy who treated them like garbage continues to treat them like garbage. I mean, there is a real level of psychopathy here. There is something fundamentally wrong with these women. You would think the rational response would be: “I chose the guy who treated me like garbage, and not surprisingly, he continued doing so.” But no. You literally never hear that from a woman, ever.
I think women are a lot less of a victim in these cases than they’d like to admit. They knew what was going to happen from the very beginning. I’m sure that occasionally, there are a few guys who appear to be nice, then later on get abusive. But even then, there are signs and women totally ignore them.
This is perfectly depicted in It Ends With Us. When Lily and Ryle first meet, Ryle says something along the lines of, “Oh, I don’t do relationships. Love isn’t for me. Lust is nice though.”
Red flag. Massive red flag.
What does Lily do? Ignore it. She’s literally kissing him a few minutes later.
At another time, Ryle’s sister literally points at Ryle and says to Lily, “I’ve seen this man go through so many women. If you want meh, this is a great option. But if you really want a relationship, this is not the man for you.”
Like, dang. Could it be any clearer? The man’s own sister is saying, “Run!”
Massive red flag once again ignored.
There are other signs in the movie as well, but those are very clear signs that she should not be in a relationship with this man.
I find it highly likely that the women who are abused are shown massive red flags and completely choose to ignore them. So, how can they be surprised when it happens?
The bottom line is women need to take ownership for their own decisions and stop playing the victim. If you don’t want to be abused, don’t date guys who treat you like garbage. It really is that simple. But this is what people have been saying for millennia, so it feels like a futile battle to get some of these women to understand any logic.
The interesting thing is: If women really wanted to significantly decrease domestic violence, they wouldn’t date or marry guys who treat them like garbage. It really is that simple. In fact, by dating and marrying jerks and stiff-arming guys who would treat them well, it means more guys will become jerks because women constantly reward that behavior.
Continuing with the notion of putting women on a pedestal, “Nice Guys” make women their whole world and get their sense of self-value from women. These are two absolutely terrible mistakes. Men should get their sense of self-value from God and from the fact that they are in the process of chasing greatness. They should never get their sense of self-value from a woman. Ever. Period. They should make chasing greatness their whole world and invite a woman to be a part of that, to become a part of his life, but never the center of it. The moment a man makes a woman the center of his life, she will resent him and leave him. The moment a man gets his sense of self-value from a woman she will see how weak he is and leave him.
There is another potential reason why women date jerks that I haven’t found anywhere else. If you think about it, what kind of guy is a jerk to women? Only the kind of guy who easily attracts a lot of women. In other words, a guy that most women think is hot. So, this hot guy has a ton of attention from women and gets them easily so he’s not nice to them because he doesn’t need any woman in particular. Women definitely want hot guys and a lot of them (but not all) tend to be jerks.
Answering the question of why women date and marry jerks has been very enlightening for me.
Those are the very complex answers that I’ve found to a very interesting question.
As It Ends With Us was about to be released into theaters, it became publicly known that Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (the two stars of the movie, Baldoni is also the Director) were having some sort of serious feud. In recent days, the particulars of the feud have come to light as they are now going to court.
Lively is suing Baldoni and his production company, WayFarer Studios (which produced It Ends with Us), as well as several individuals for a litany of things, including sexual harassment, negligence, interference with prospective economic advantage, intentional affliction of emotional distress, and more.
Lively’s team is also suing for retaliation, alleging that Baldoni and WayFarer Studios “embarked on a sophisticated press and digital plan in retaliation for Ms. Lively exercising her legally-protected right to speak up about their misconduct on the set, with the additional objective of intimidating her and anyone else from revealing in public what actually occurred,” as written in the filing.
Per the lawsuit obtained by Fox News Digital, a “Scenario Planning Document” was sent from a hired crisis management team to Baldoni, Heath and others, which laid out three likely scenarios that Lively and her team might utilize and, conversely, how Baldoni’s team would respond if she chose to “make her grievances public.” Lively’s attorney claims in the filing that Baldoni’s hired crisis PR manager, Melissa Nathan, distributed the document on Aug. 2, 2024, “to advance misleading counternarratives.”
According to another article, Blake Lively wanted a good working environment. Apparently, all parties involved agreed upon several things:
No more showing nude videos or images of women, including producer’s wife, to BL [Lively] and/or her employees.
No more mention of Mr. Baldoni’s or Mr. [Jamey] Heath’s previous ‘pornography addiction’ or BL lack of pornography consumption to BL and other crew members.
No more discussions to BL and/or her employees about personal experiences with sex, including as it relates to spouses or others.
No more inquiries by Mr. Baldoni to BL trainer without her knowledge or consent to disclose her weight.
An intimacy coordinator must be present at all times when BL is on set in scenes with Mr. Baldoni.
It seems strange that in a movie that is literally about the need to end domestic violence and sexual domestic violence such things would be occurring on set or behind closed doors. It’s like some of the people who were making the movie totally missed the whole point of the movie. It’s just really sad.
I’m sure you’re wondering who is right and who is wrong. The only way to know what really happened is by getting input from people who were on set: the cast and crew.
It Ends With Us co-stars Brandon Sklenar and Jenny Slate have publicly expressed their support for Blake Lively.
On Dec. 23, Sklenar took to his Instagram story to urge his followers to educate themselves on the lawsuit that has been filed.
The “1923” star shared a screenshot of New York Times’ archive of legal documents and wrote, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ THIS.” Sklenar tagged Lively’s Instagram account and added a red heart emoji.
“As Blake Lively’s castmate and friend, I voice my support as she takes action against those reported to have planned and carried out an attack on her reputation,” Jenny Slate said in a statement to Today. “Blake is a leader, loyal friend and a trusted source of emotional support for me and so many who know and love her.”
Slate continued: “What has been revealed about the attack on Blake is terribly dark, disturbing, and wholly threatening. I commend my friend, I admire her bravery, and I stand by her side.”
In a statement given to The New York Times, Lively said, “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”
Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer, told The Times, “These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media.”
Freedman added that Wayfarer, and its executives and PR team “did nothing proactive nor retaliated” against Lively. Freedman claims Lively’s complaint is “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”
Unfortunately, this whole scenario is just a mess. I hope the truth will prevail. Sadly, things can get very messy in Hollywood.
With all that said, now it’s time to get on with the analysis of the movie.
I’d never seen Blake Lively in a movie before and she’s the only star in this movie most people have heard of. I was very interested to see whether or not she was a good actress. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she is a terrific actress. Playing the character of Lily Bloom, Blake had a very challenging role. She had to be happy, sad, fun, flirtatious, afraid, terrified, cautious, optimistic, pessimistic, etc. all to varying degrees. She kept the role fresh and entertaining all throughout the movie.
My favorite part of watching her act was definitely her first scene with Justin Baldoni. That scene was written extremely well and both Blake and Justin acted the heck out of it. They were flirting, revealing secret parts of themselves, trying to cover their feelings, etc. That scene made the movie a whole lot better.
After watching It Ends With Us, it’s clear that Blake Lively is a phenomenal actress. I’m very much looking forward to watching her in more movies, hopefully soon.
Blake Lively Performance Grade:
9.5 A Excellent
Justin Baldoni plays Lily Bloom’s main love interest, Ryle Kincaid. I had never heard of Justin Baldoni before this movie. Even though Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni don’t get along in real life, they have a ton of on-screen acting chemistry. The first scene they act in together is just so phenomenal and so entertaining, they couldn’t do it anywhere near that well without a ton of acting chemistry.
Acting chemistry is different from romantic chemistry. Sometimes, two actors just really mesh well together, and that’s Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni without a doubt. Justin Baldoni is a really terrific actor and he played a very difficult role that most guys probably don’t want to play. That first scene with Blake Lively shows just how good of an actor Justin Baldoni can be.
I’m not sure we’ll get to watch another Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni performance unless something drastically changes between them, and where it stands now, that seems highly unlikely.
Justin Baldoni Performance Grade:
8.7 A- Very Good
Brandon Sklenar played the role of Atlas Corrigan, Lily Bloom’s love in her younger life who comes back into her life. The one problem I had with Brandon’s acting was that it felt like there were times where he took too long to say his lines. You could see Blake Lively was standing over there trying to stay in character but wondering, “Is he ever going to say his line?” Those delays basically left Brandon staring awkwardly at Blake and Blake doing what she could with it. It really made those scenes feel awkward. To be fair, those scenes could have benefitted from much better writing and that would have helped Brandon do a better job of acting.
But once Brandon said his lines, he was spot on pretty much every time. He just needs to cut out a lot of the awkward staring. He also brought his hand to his mouth way too much. That’s something you might want to sprinkle in, but he did it in pretty much every scene, which is just too much.
I think Brandon Sklenar can be a much better actor with a few simple fixes.
Brandon Sklenar Performance Grade:
5.8 C+ Slightly Above Average
Jenny Slate played the role of Alyssa, Lily’s best friend. I thought Jenny was fun and added a lot of energy to the movie. She also had a really powerful line near the end of the movie.
I thought Jenny Slate was a really good actress and I hope I get to see her in more movies.
Jenny Slate Performance Grade:
8.3 B+ Very Good
Isabela Ferrer played the same character as Blake Lively, Lily Bloom, just the young version. My first note is just how easily you could envision Blake Lively looking pretty similar to Isabela Ferrer when she was young. They both even have a mole in almost exactly the same spot on their cheek (although that could easily be a makeup job). In fact, when Isabela Ferrer was first introduced into the movie, it took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t Blake Lively.
I thought Isabela Ferrer did a pretty good job of acting. My favorite thing that she did in the movie was something very surprising that happens on the bus (I won’t give it away). That was great writing and great acting.
Isabela Ferrer Performance Grade:
7.7 B Good
Alex plays the same character as Brandon Sklenar, just the young version. He does a good job of playing a young man who is nervous and not sure of himself at times. His character had been “dealt a tough hand” in life and I thought he embodied his character quite well.
Alex Neustaedter Performance Grade:
8.2 B+ Very Good
Overall, the acting was quite good. We got to witness an excellent performance from Blake Lively and some very good performances from other actors. If Brandon Sklenar had been a bit better and if the writer had given him better lines and scenes to act, this would’ve been one of the best performances from an entire cast in 2024.
Overall Acting Grade:
7.8 B Good
The plot of the movie is very obvious. No one’s going to be surprised by what happens or how it ends. Furthermore, the writer ran a second plot line that is all in the past. When you have so many flashbacks it keeps freezing the main plot line and eventually brings it to a grinding halt. Obviously, that is not what you want to do. I know they ran a second plot line all in the past to help the audience fully understand the relationship between Lily and Atlas, but you’ve got to find a way to shorten and consolidate the flashbacks so they aren’t halting your main plot line. And when you do have a flashback, it has to be super entertaining, which only one of the flashbacks was.
Another aspect of the plot that I didn’t understand was the first time Ryle hits Lily Bloom. It was clearly on accident. He was not mad at her. They were laughing and talking and about to eat a breakfast to celebrate. The food he cooks starts to burn and he puts his hand in the oven to grab it without an oven mitt. He recoils because he obviously burns his hand and hits her, clearly on accident. But later on in the movie, when they’re showing flashbacks of how he hurt her, they show this one and they show him angry and hitting her on purpose which is absolutely not how it actually happened. That was just stupid.
A third aspect of the plot that I didn’t understand was after Lily and Ryle had known each other for some time, they both go to a birthday party and he’s following her like a little dog. Lily tells Ryle to stop, “Stop looking at me. Stop coming to my flower shop. Stop following me around this party.” I mean, it is very clear she does not want to be around him. Then all of a sudden, magically, not less than 15 seconds later, they’re making out at his place. That literally makes zero sense. There is no chance in heck that would ever happen so fast. The guy would have to do a lot of other things and it would take a lot more time for him to ever get her once she’s forcefully telling him to stop. The moment a woman forcefully tells a man to stop, it’s basically game over. He has no chance and has to move on to another woman. The same thing is true for when a man forcefully tells a woman to stop.
So, all of those aspects of the plot made zero sense and they needed to write it better. In essence, they were cheating in the writing.
With the simplistic predictable plot, so many flashbacks, and cheating twice, the plot really struggled in this movie.
Plot Grade:
2.3 D Bad
As I mentioned before, that first dialogue scene between Lily and Ryle was excellent. That’s how you write a scene! It was fantastic creative writing. Unfortunately, after that, there really weren’t any more interesting dialogue scenes.
Something I think they really missed out on was they should’ve given Atlas’ adult character a lot more comedy lines. They gave him one comedy line, and it was funny. His adult character needed a lot more comedy and it would’ve contrasted very well from his younger self where he’s insecure and in survival mode to showing that his older self is well-adjusted and thriving. It also would’ve been a good idea to let Atlas’ adult character talk about some of his Marine experiences. That would’ve given his adult character a lot more dimension. Atlas’ adult character really felt wooden—like it had no concrete shape, and it’s such a crucial character to the story. It could’ve added so much more to the movie. It was like the writer didn’t really give his adult character much thought.
Except for that first scene between Lily and Ryle, the rest of the dialogue scenes were pretty transactional. I would’ve loved to see them spice up those scenes while still hitting the objective of each scene.
The only reason the dialogue score is as high as it is, is because of that first scene between Lily and Ryle.
Dialogue Grade:
4.2 C- Slightly Below Average
Overall, the writing in this movie really struggled. It could have been a lot better with a bit more creativity and attention to some of the characters and throwing in a few more twists to the plot.
Overall Writing Grade:
3.5 D+ Below Average
This is one category in which this movie excels. There were a lot of songs from professional artists and they were all terrific choices. There are two music composers for this movie who did compose some music and they did a very good job too.
Blake Lively said she influenced every aspect of this movie. I’m not sure if she selected the songs, or the Director, or the Music Composers, or if all four of them had a hand in it, but they did a great job. The music added a ton to this movie. You’ll rarely hear better music for a movie than in this one. Along with the acting, the music is my favorite part of It Ends With Us.
Music Grade:
9.4 A Excellent
The cinematography in this movie was decent. My only real problem was the fact that so many shots were in so tight. There were just way too many close-ups. As the Director, when you’re shooting a scene, you need to understand the emotional arc of the scene. You need to know which point of the scene is the most important. Gradually, the camera shots should be moving in closer (generally). With having so many close-ups, the Director and Director of Photography didn’t give the scenes a chance to move in emotionally. We were just in way too close way too much.
There were, however, a few terrific shots.
They had a terrific transition that I had never seen before. The characters fall into bed kissing and the camera slowly raises up, showing a beautiful shot out of the luxury apartment to the harbor at night time. The camera stays in the same position, they do a quick time-lapse of 6-8 hours, so you see the night gradually becoming morning. Then the camera slowly lowers to the face of one of the characters who’s still laying in bed. That was heck of a transition!
The other shot that I really enjoyed was a Steadicam reverse tracking shot of Blake Lively walking to the bathroom in the restaurant. A reverse tracking shot moves backward as the actress walks forward, so she retains her relative size in the shot, but is clearly moving. Somehow, they created a really interesting effect and it just looked really cool.
If there weren’t so many close-ups that prevented the storyteller from presenting an emotional arc during the scenes, the Cinematography grade would be much higher.
Cinematography Grade:
6.3 B- Above Average
Due to the fact that there were way too many close-ups, a flashback that didn’t make sense that could have easily been cut, and some of Brandon Sklenar’s scenes being awkward, the directing in this movie wasn’t top notch. In case you missed it, Justin Baldoni, the same man who played Ryle Kincaid, was also the Director for the movie. The movie did have some really good transitions from one scene to the next and a lot of terrific acting. I think Justin could take some of the miscues in this movie, learn from them, and become a much better Director.
Directing Grade:
6.2 B- Above Average
There are some cuss words and several sex scenes. Because it’s PG-13, there is no nudity and the sex scenes are pretty short.
Overall, It Ends With Us had some things to really enjoy and had some things that could’ve been much better. The acting and the music were very high quality. One dialogue scene was absolutely terrific, but the rest of the writing could’ve been much better.
It Ends With Us Overall Grade:
3.9 D+ Below Average
Blake Lively is a star and I loved watching her act, no doubt. But this movie just isn’t very good.
Adrian Harris is a writer, author, and business owner. He hopes to soon open his own movie studio and become a movie producer, director, and actor. Read Adrian’s Bio.
Adrian Harris is a writer, author, and business owner. He hopes to soon open his own movie studio and become a movie producer, director, and actor. Read Adrian’s Bio.
*Comedy Short Story
Adrian parked the car in the driveway as he and his beautiful wife, Hannah, arrived at home. As they got out of the car, Hannah looked at the blooming flowers in their garden then at their two-story house, “It’s good to be home.”
Denis (I believe it’s pronounced Deni. The s is silent. Denis is French and French words and names are never pronounced how they’re spelled. The same can be said for a lot of English words) Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2 was probably the most anticipated release of the year.
About six years ago, I received the worst possible revelation from the Holy Ghost you can possibly receive. The Holy Ghost told me to study the Book of Job. The moment he told me that, I immediately put my head down. I knew what God was saying.
