Jamais plus - It Ends With Us

The Age of Adaline ten years on, no longer dealing with the travails of age, but this time with relationship violence, only far less nostalgically old-school. With Blake Lively, a piano, and autumnal Boston, it's a bit of a safe bet in a sense, because those basic building blocks rarely end in fiascos, and neither does it here. It Ends with Us builds an intimate story slowly, with relative believability and care. It works well with the main characters and their motivations and development. Lively performs as well as she did a decade ago, and many an eye will be pleased by the fact that she still looks just as good. It’s perhaps a shame that some scenes drag on too much and could do with some trimming, because after hearing "I am sorry" 156 times and "I love you" 220 times I felt like tearing my hair out, but the ending does show a tight directorial rein and doesn't send the atmosphere, the charge and the denouement of the whole film down the drain. I'd rather remember Adaline Bowman than Lily Bloom, though. (06/10/2024)

It Ends Us has a very tricky and intrinsically dense subject matter, but it fails to translate it to the screen in such a way that the film "made my mouth drop". In the beginning I had quite a problem with the direction of the actors and the dialogue in general, while the film as a whole is also harmed by the considerably overlong running time, which had the effect of diluting the intense subject matter. Alongside this, it's also a shame that the film and its subject matter has been overshadowed by some controversy surrounding its promotion. That being said, I was intrigued by the way domestic violence was depicted, where from the perspective of the love-struck main character it seemed like a series of unfortunate incidents. I also have to praise the soundtrack, especially the songs by Lana Del Rey and Cigarettes After Sex, which fitted the film perfectly. (12/09/2024)

An unexpectedly fine cinema visit. I hadn't read the book and only had a rough outline of what the film would be about, so I can only rate the film, and it worked decently for me. The whole thing is pulled off by Blake Lively, who is all personality on screen and is just fun to watch, but the story also reeled me in decently, even though it's actually pretty ordinary on the whole. It has romance, it has drama, the tension in the climactic scenes is handled perfectly, and that "pressure" scene is so well done that my heart was racing, and likewise the reunions, break-ups and all the elements around it kept me entertained and managed to grab my heart in places. A very surprising piece that I wasn't expecting much from, but which actually worked more than well in almost every aspect. Satisfaction. (21/08/2024)