 |
| Simonsen |
It Ends With Us: (Rob Simonsen/Duncan Blickenstaff)
A movie about domestic violence masquerading as a typical romance,
It
Ends With Us is troubled by what it exactly wants to be. The story
has all the hallmarks of a traditional contemporary love triangle flick,
the lead woman played by Blake Lively dealing with familial loss and the
opening of her own flower shop when confronted with the affections of a
neighboring stud and an old flame at the same time. That's all jolly
well and wonderful until the neighbor begins physically abusing her.
Against all better judgement, she goes ahead and marries the asshole,
who impregnates her along the path to continued abuse. How she handles
her life options at that point carries the bulk of the weight in
It
Ends With Us, and of course she has to consider the old flame as a
long-term alternative. The film hit choppy waters when the director (the
lead male star) and Lively disagreed with the edits in post-production
and Lively hired her own editor, with rumors abounding that her husband,
Ryan Reynolds, was involved in altering the screenplay to some degree.
The more interesting conflict arose in the controversy over the movie's
casual and seemingly carefree depiction of domestic violence, the lead
character's reactions to the abuse not well received. Still, the movie
performed very well in the late summer 2024 theatre scene, spurring
discussion of a sequel based on the series of books on which this story
was adapted. The movie's soundtrack is dominated by the use of Lewis
Capaldi's "Love the Hell Out of You" as its primary song, with several
variants of its instrumental backing available for listeners.
Unfortunately, the tone of Capaldi's vocals is too abrasive and lyrics
too creepy for this story, furthering the disconnect about the topic of
abuse. The score for
It Ends With Us was provided by Rob
Simonsen, who had written for Lively's
The Age of Adaline. This
time, he affords co-writing credit to Duncan Blickenstaff, an
experienced synthesist who had ghostwritten on a variety of scores by
Simonsen and Mychael Danna. Listeners hoping for
It Ends With Us
to reprise the romantic allure of
The Age of Adaline will be
disappointed, the 2015 score's romanticism and choral ambience full of
James Horner references lost in this far gloomier endeavor.
The demeanor of the score for
It Ends With Us is
far more restrained and generally timid, only rarely offering a sense of
warmth or hope. The only Horner influence from
The Age of Adaline
to survive here comes in "Lily Survives," in which piano lines remind
heavily of
The Life Before Her Eyes from 2007. Otherwise, the
score is largely unremarkable, its instrumentation consisting of
synthetics, acoustic guitar, piano, and strings. The electronic element
provides ambient tones while the guitar and piano struggle to reinforce
any notion that we should care about these characters. The strings are
often understated and in pulsation mode with countless whole notes. An
innocent music box effect in "Seeing Atlas" is highly unique but not
reprised in any hint for later interactions with the character. The sum
of these performers is barely audible and hardly impactful, moderately
pleasant in a minimal stance. The tone is beaten, with no real sense of
optimism or defiance or drama or importance. The final third offers some
slightly threatening shades from low strings and synth droning, heard
late in "Anyone But Him" and "It's Nothing." The latter pushes
electronic pulsating effects that become more frightful in "Please
Stop." The song's melody is adapted extensively into the score for the
main Lily character but not very obviously, and some listeners may not
even recall its progressions immediately after hearing them. This
thematic material is most evident in "Opening" and "A New Beginning" but
not well developed elsewhere. Fragments of the melody are ineffective at
connecting a scene back to the song or the score's main iterations of
the theme. While the last cue offers some hope that the abuse survivor
can emerge from the hazy atmosphere via her renewed theme, the idea is
still very subdued, if not even bludgeoned at this point. While there is
nothing inherently wrong with the score in a basic functional sense, the
entire thing suffers from a personality deficit and total lack of
emotional connection. There are no swings in drama, fear, joy, or even
romance to suggest that the characters are struggling through any dose
of trauma. Between the awkward lyrics and vocal inflection in the main
song and the lack of any convincing care from Simonsen and Blickenstaff,
the soundtrack for
It Ends With Us loses touch and contributes to
the film's ills. The score was released on its own, and its 40 minutes
will pass by pleasantly enough, but expect nothing from its cues to
resonate for a story that required more heart.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
There exists no official packaging for this album.
