Blake Lively: "It Ends With Us"

Blake Lively is a wonderful actor. This is sometimes overlooked because of her branding exercises, but if I had to choose a Lively performance or a Ryan Reynolds performance, Blake Lively would win every time.

"The Shallows," "Cafe Society," "The Town," "A Simple Favor," Season One of "Gossip Girl"--all are entertaining, and Lively pulls her own weight again and again. People forget that the first year of "Gossip Girl" is patterned after "The Age of Innocence," and Lively is tasked with playing Countess Ellen Olenska. Not every young performer could pull that off.

How shrewd to make "It Ends With Us," which is a crime drama. It's not a romance. It's an unusual choice for summer blockbuster fare. Like the clothed wolf, in the Little Red Ridinghood fairytale, the villain wears a disguise. Meanwhile, Little Red herself ignores an internal warning system--because it's frightening to consider how messy her situation is.

Also, the theater legend Amy Morton hovers on the periphery. Her character is more complex than she seems; it's nice to see Morton getting a meaty part in a big movie.

I expected a silly melodrama--and that's often what the script provides--but, also, Blake Lively surprised me. There are worse choices at the movie theater, for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DLET_u31M4M

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