Is the It Ends With Us marketing campaign detracting from the film's serious subject matter?

It Ends With Us is a massive hit — first as a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover, and now as a feature film starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. The story follows a young woman's emotional journey trying to break the cycle of abuse and overcome generational trauma. 

While the film's trailer alludes vaguely to the darker aspects of this story, some observers have pointed out that the film's marketing campaign overall has fallen short of matching the story's tone. Culture writers Sadaf Ahsan and CT Jones join Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss this promotional approach. 

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Sadaf, I think that the trick that the movie's trying to pull off is that it is marketed as a rom-com, but then it transitions from this classic rom-com story into this drama about domestic violence. Colleen Hoover has been pretty open about how this book has been based on her own parents' abusive relationship. Talk me through the lens that we witnessed this story through in the movie.

Sadaf: So this is the bit that I quite liked. Again, I'm not sure everyone would agree with me, but we have the first half where we get to see Blake Lively's character fall in love with Justin Baldoni's character, which is the one that ends up becoming an abusive relationship. I think that's effective because the audience will also start to fall in love with him and fall in love with the relationship, and you get swept up and it's this great romance.

Then in the second half, we start to see what happens when it actually turns abusive. And in the beginning, she's convinced, and she's manipulated by this guy. She's also, I think, probably clouded by her love for him…. It's only when she has an epiphany, she starts to realize, "Actually, wait a second. I think this guy has been playing me a little bit. I think I've been manipulated into seeing it this way." And she starts to realize how the abuse has been unfolding pretty intentionally.

I think that's a great device to use, considering who the audience is, which is a lot of really young women who probably don't think about that a lot and how that might unfold. And maybe a lot of people who also subscribe to that question of, well, why don't the women leave? Why isn't it just that easy? Because as we know, it's more complicated.

Elamin: It's interesting that you describe that as a device, the idea that this first bit of it is played as a rom-com so that you as an audience member maybe get swept up in and invested in this relationship. 

CT: I think the narrative device works really well. I think my problem is not leaving it as a narrative device, and instead allowing that inclination of calling it a rom-com to convince more people to sit down and watch the film. 

Elamin: Let's get into the Blake Lively of it all…. Blake Lively is, of course, a marketing genius. She knows exactly how to position this movie, knows how to position herself. But what she's trying to do is create a cinematic moment, not unlike Barbenheimer. She's been stepping out in all these floral dresses, trying to invite people to do the same and showing up to this movie. But this is a movie about domestic violence. There's a discordance between the way you market this movie and try to create a "moment" out of it, and what the movie is actually about. It feels like there's a bit of distance between how Blake is positioning it and what this movie's trying to even do. So why has the marketing for this movie been so fraught, CT?

CT: Yeah, you said it right there. I think marketing a movie about domestic violence is hard. One of the ways you don't do it is encourage everyone to dress up in matching floral dresses and come bring their friends and call it the girlypop movie of the season…. If you're marketing a movie about domestic violence — having fan activations, having pop-ups, influencer marketing sweepstakes, encouraging women to run around New York and find signed copies of the book — while it will probably get more people in to see the movie, I think it does a major disservice to what the movie's end goal is trying to accomplish.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.