TOMASBBloodhound

For all the hype surrounding this film, it sure isn't very good. The theme of domestic abuse has been done time and time again, and often much better. It Ends With Us lacks the suspense of a film like Sleeping With the Enemy, the grit of What's Love Got To Do With It, or even the TV movie The Burning Bed. It even lacks the bizarre campiness of something like Enough, with Jennifer Lopez. It Ends is more of a bland, but glossy lifetime movie with some major stars. I have not read the book, but I can assure you the movie is really not worth your time.

Blake Lively plays Lily Bloom. Yes! One of the terrible names these characters are given. There are others. Just scan through the cast list and you'll see them. And get this... she runs a flower shop of all things. If you set us up like that, you'd better give us a good story, movie. Anyway, it appears that most of the men these characters have known are abusive. Lily's dad, her high school boyfriend's mother's boyfriend, and now this studly brain surgeon played by the film's director. Will she recognize the danger she's in if she marries him? Will she be able to forgive her abusive father?? Will she go back to her high school boyfriend who is now a trendy chef??? Will she ever make a profit selling flowers????

The film takes a serious, long-standing problem and glosses it up irresponsibly. As an actor and a director, Baldoni comes off as narcissistic and shallow. In one scene he even askes Lively if she's ever seen a doctor with such a great set of abs, or whatnot. Try not to get it all over yourself, dude. The actual scenes where he abuses her are of course uncomfortable, but shot in such a sanitized way its almost hard to see what he has done to her. In one ridiculous scene, Baldoni and Lively are eating at the ex-boyfriend's restaurant and he notices an unremarkable bandage on her wrist. Then apparently he is supposed to notice she also has a black eye, but the makeup is so subtly applied you can barely see it. Blake Lively must have really not wanted anything to obscure her admittedly beautiful face too badly. The ex, from only these subtle clues is somehow able to deduce the two of them are in an abusive relationship just like that.

It isn't hard to see where we are headed in terms of plot, and there really isn't a good payoff to the tepid drama. The constant legal back and forth between the two stars is getting old in the press. If nothing else, it would seem to prove this was a troubled project from the get-go. Watch if you must, but there is nothing particularly compelling here. 3 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

This is quite an emotionally-absorbing film. Call Me By Your Name is a story of sexual and emotional discovery during one summer in Northern Italy circa 1983. In it, we see a seventeen-year-old boy named Elio developing and eventually exploring romantic feelings he has for an older male graduate student staying with his family for the summer. The boy's father is some kind of expert in linguistics or classical art, or some such thing. Apparently they host a grad student there each summer. The grad student, (Armie Hammer) immediately catches Elio's eye and they become fast friends. Elio has an advanced intellect himself, and their mutual Judaism also helps forge the bond. The two spend a lot of time together and banter back and forth between long bike rides and mingling with the locals. Its a very pleasant atmosphere in and around the family home. Obviously, once one reads a synopsis of the film, we know where things are headed, but it takes a while for it to play out on the screen. Both young men are cautious to say the least when exploring this potential relationship, and the two are also apparently involved sexually with local woman. Then, there are Elio's parents to potentially worry about, though this does not turn out to be an issue. Far from it. The first half of this film is a leisurely setup, the the second half deals with the affair and its consequences. There is quite an emotional payoff this author did not expect.

The theme that made the most impact was the fleeting nature of such a relationship and the brief happiness it brings. When you are Elio's age, things change rapidly, and before you know it, you've passed a point where you can never get back to that place every again. Once Oliver hops on a train and heads off to live the rest of his life, Elio is crushed. And anyone who also shared a summer like that in their lives will feel it too. There is no going back. It was 31 years ago that I had this kind of summer, and within a matter of a few weeks of college, I knew that it would be impossible to find that happiness ever again. I understand Elio's despair even though I was the one who left. My relationship wasn't with another guy, but what does it matter?

Once Oliver has moved on, Elio and his father have a very honest and touching conversation about what he has just experienced. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg) could not be more understanding. He does however lie to Elio when the boy asks if his mother knew about the affair.

This is just one of those movies that, like the situation that it depicts, will be hard to duplicate. I cringe in hearing there are possible plans for a sequel, though Armie Hammer's career problems might prevent him being involved. You cannot recreate this kind of emotion in real life, and they should not try to do it in a sequel, either. 9 of 10 stars. The Hound.