The blockbuster 2016 novel by Colleen Hoover is given a glossy, impeccably groomed Hollywood treatment in this melodrama starring Blake Lively. She plays Lily Bloom, a visionary florist with a thriving business in Boston, an enviable Carrie Bradshaw-adjacent wardrobe and a ridiculously attractive brain surgeon boyfriend (a frequently shirtless Justin Baldoni, who also directs).
For a film that dips its Manolo-clad toe into the murky waters of domestic abuse, it’s unexpectedly aspirational, almost frothy in tone. But perhaps that’s the point the film is labouring: spousal violence in a relationship is rarely broadcast to the wider world. Friends and family might be oblivious to the warning signs in a seemingly perfect partnership; even the victim can remain in denial.
In Lily’s case, a childhood front-row seat witnessing her father’s brutality against her mother sensitises her to the pattern of violence in her own relationship. But even so, it takes the intervention of a former boyfriend, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), before she realises the gravity of her situation.
