What "It Ends With Us" Gets Wrong About Domestic Violence

There's no question that the idea of stopping domestic violence in its tracks is a great one. And that's what Colleen Hoover's book, "It Ends With Us," now a movie, suggests. However, anyone who has been through DV might be shocked at this presentation of its oversimplification. The movie is beige in many ways, from its flat depiction of a DV relationship to its pronounced lack of characters of color (I noted one Black person with a very brief speaking role in the entire film).

"It Ends With Us" is the story of a flower fanatic named Lily Blossom Bloom (yes, I cringed too) whose abusive father has recently died. Her mom never left her dad, and Lily grapples with this decision as well as her complex feelings for her deceased father. She soon meets a man named Ryle, who is introduced violently: We first encounter him on a rooftop, throwing a chair out of anger. This is their sordid story, with love triangle elements involving Lily's first love.

Before getting into the varied areas where this story falls short of reality, let's look at the changes in the transition from book to movie that were on the right side of history.

The Movie Made Some Appropriate Changes

In the book, Ellen DeGeneres is a fantasy figurehead for Lily. This is minimized in the movie. The book was written before revelations of DeGeneres being an abuser herself came to light. "There were not any negative allegations about Ellen at the time when the book was written," explains Teri Schroeder, LCSW, who provides counseling for trauma and PTSD. "Dating this to the time period of the book, it would have had Lily watching Ellen in the 2000s," she adds.

In fact, the adaptation just kept the best of DeGeneres' work. "In the movie, Hoover’s positive message—'Just Keep Swimming'—is subtly included through background images and a Nemo plush," notes Afton Turner, LPCA, a counselor specializing in trauma recovery and family dynamics.

The adaptation also changed the book's ending into a less harmful one. In the book, abusive ex-husband Ryle co-parents with Lily. Turner says that the book "highlights red flags in Ryle’s parenting, including his belief that his children would never meet his high standards," which makes it quite concerning that Lily has no qualms about sharing custody. "Unless Ryle works on healing and learning healthy relationship dynamics, he might continue to expose his child to harmful behaviors," Turner adds. In the movie, Lily raises her daughter alone, which is a much better way of handling the issue.

The Missing Piece: The Build Up

As a DV survivor myself, there were a lot of things about this movie that felt severely lacking in terms of what it's actually like to live through the nightmare of having an abusive partner. What struck me most of all was how in between the abuse episodes, which were unrealistically focused only on one single trigger of Ryle's, Lily seemed to feel completely safe and comfortable.

“One of my concerns with the story is that, due to its condensed nature, it doesn't fully capture the abuse cycle—the honeymoon, build-up, and blow-up,” says Turner. She adds that “these phases are crucial to understanding the manipulation and confusion in domestic violence. We see the honeymoon and blow-ups, but the build-up, which can be the longest phase, is missing."

Why is this important? “During this phase, the abuser may become increasingly irritable, critical, or demanding, creating an environment where the victim feels like they are walking on eggshells and in a constant state of hypervigilance in an attempt to prevent the blow-up," she explains.

Instead, everything seems perfectly fine whenever Ryle is not actively abusing Lily. This provides a false sense of what the day-to-day experience of DV is actually like. Schroeder, though, says that Lily may not have even realized initially that she was being abused. "Despite her resolve not to repeat past mistakes, she may have missed or overlooked early red flags because they felt familiar," she tells us. "The movie effectively demonstrates how patterns of trauma can repeat themselves, especially when someone grows up in a particular environment and later finds themselves in a similar situation," she adds.

Family Backgrounds Aren't Always So Simple

In this story, Lily's dad abuses her mom. That standard, heteronormative view of abuse is, outside of tired, not always the case. In reality, more mothers abuse their children than fathers do, with 54% of abusive parents being mothers, 86% of whom were biological. Of the other 46%, only 51% were biological fathers to the children they abused.

Family abuse can be either a parent, a sibling, any extended family member who lives with you, a parent's significant other, and more.

Support Systems Can Be Hard to Find

In this tale, Lily is incredibly lucky to have both a best friend who encourages her to leave Ryle, even though she is Ryle's sister and an ex-boyfriend who supports her through it. While a lovely notion, it isn't a terribly realistic one. "In reality, people in relationships like Lily’s with Ryle often become isolated from their support systems, either because the abusive partner actively isolates them or because they feel too ashamed to talk about it," says Schroeder. "In real life, getting that level of support can be much more complicated."

She notes that "family and friends of the abuser might deny that any harm is being done or fail to recognize the abuse altogether. Friends and family of the person going through it might end up passing judgment and eventually distancing themselves."

Instead, Lily finds only complete support and encouragement from her peers. "The fact that Lily had several people in her life who offered unconditional support without judgment is crucial, as not everyone has that, and it can be incredibly important," notes Schroeder.

That brings us to the next way that DV is portrayed inaccurately. Good luck trying to leave as successfully and immediately as Lily did.

Leaving Isn't That Easy

We are led to believe that somehow, Lily didn't realize she was being abused through every violent episode until the "last" one. This felt insulting as a reader/watcher, given how it's made clear from the start that Ryle is prone to violence. It was even less believable that once Lily decided to leave, she was gone without any backlash from Ryle.

That just isn't how it usually works. "One thing that doesn’t always reflect reality is how Lily made a clear decision to leave Ryle, and he respected that decision," says Schroeder. "In reality, this process is often much more challenging, involving multiple breakups, second-guessing, and attempts to leave that don’t go smoothly. It’s common for the situation to be messier, with the abusive partner not respecting boundaries or to make it very difficult for that person to leave," she explains.

Not only is it harder to leave a partner, especially as a parent, than is presented in this story, it's far more dangerous. "Women with younger children experienced elevated risks of physical violence shortly before divorce and remained at higher risk of menace than women without children for a year after divorce," says one study.

And Do We Really Need to Sympathize With Abusers?

Lastly, Ryle is meant to be a character with whom we at least minimally sympathize. He has a tragic backstory and he's vaguely charming. He also gets a ton of air time, due to being played by none other than the film's own director. I'm just not sold on the idea that a sympathetic abuser is something the world needs more of, in a society where "me too" all too often means a moment of cancelation before an abuser can safely return to their limelight.

"In Ryle's case, his family recognized his trauma but didn't encourage him to seek the therapy he needed to heal," explains Turner. "Instead, they reinforced the belief that his trauma defined him and made him violent. While trauma can be a reason for abusive behavior, it is never an excuse," she adds.

Do we really need to be yet more sensitive to the woes of a successful White man who abuses women? I don't think so, which, in addition to the reasons above, made this movie a miss for me.