Fans of the book It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover cannot possibly enjoy the movie. It’s filled with inconsistencies between the two and does not relay the same themes of the book.
Viewers should have been immediately upset at the movie’s beginning when Lily first meets Ryle on the rooftop of his building. In the book, Lily reveals “the naked truth” to Ryle that her dad used to hit her mom, but in the movie, she reveals that she used to have a relationship with a homeless man, Atlas.
A lot of other significant details in the book were missed in the movie – Lily doesn’t have a roommate in the movie, Altas’ restaurant is named BIB’s (Better in Boston) in the book while in the movie it was called Roots, a reference to their love being as strong as an “oak tree.” Lily doesn’t have a Boston magnet on her refrigerator in the movie, a major reason Ryle abuses her for in the book.
The entire story behind Lily’s tattoo had a significant importance that’s missed in the movie. In the book, they explained how she got the idea of the tattoo, while in the movie it’s never even mentioned once. Although they never mention how it came to be, they did mention the tattoo a couple of times, one time was when Ryle asked Lily about it and she said it was a dumb thing she did as a teenager. The big thing they did to show the importance of the tattoo was when Ryle bit around it after he made Lily read Atlas’s restaurant award. In the interview about his restaurant, Atlas wrote about how he named the place Roots because he once made a hollow heart out of an oak tree for the love of his life like Lily’s tattoo.
Some choices in the movie might have left viewers disappointed. The actors chosen were a lot older than in the book. In the book, Lily hadn’t seen Atlas for seven years since she was 18, making her no older than 25. Blake Lively, who plays Lily in the movie, is 36 years old. The actor who plays Ryle is 40 years old while he was 28 in the movie.
One of the main themes in the book is its reference to Dory’s “just keep swimming” from Finding Nemo. In the movie, there was a framed picture of Nemo in Lily’s room but if the viewer blinked, they could have missed it. The ending of the book finishes the story perfectly, with Lily running into Atlas’ arms and telling him that her daughter’s middle name is Dory. Lily then tells Atlas she is ready to be loved by him again. Atlas kisses Lily’s heart tattoo on her collarbone and tells her “You can stop swimming now, you’ve reached the shore.” In contrast, the movie falls short and ends with Lily running into Atlas at a farmer’s market, both just stating that they are not in a relationship with anyone.
