'It Ends With Us' screenwriter Christy Hall shares with THR the most difficult scene to crack when writing the screenplay for the movie. Plus, she reveals what she hopes audiences would take away from seeing this film.
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00:00I know this story and this book has a lot of heavy themes in it, so what do you hope
00:07that audiences take away from seeing this film?
00:10I hope that anyone who has suffered through a reality like this might feel inspired to
00:17be able to ask for help.
00:19I also feel like friends of victims.
00:22I really love when Atlas hides his number in her phone.
00:26He doesn't force his help, but he offers his help, and he renders himself a safe place
00:32and a lifeline, and so I hope that this film also inspires people to do that for their
00:36friends as well.
00:38Was there any scene in particular that was challenging to work through?
00:43Yeah, you know, as a writer, probably the most difficult scene for me to crack was the
00:48rooftop scene, because I have to say Colleen wrote it perfectly, and I wish I could have
00:54just lifted it from the pages and just put it in the film, but it's a little too long
00:59for film language, and so my first crack at it, it was like a 10-page scene, which is
01:05a little impossible, so the question became, what do we keep?
01:10What do we shave off?
01:12There's a lot of heavy lifting in that scene, and I'm so proud to the performers for really,
01:17I mean, there's just a lot of things that have to happen in that scene.
01:20Just kicking over a chair all the way to them starting to get a little intimate, and
01:25if you really look at the emotional beats of the scene, it's incredible how many layers
01:29there are, so on the page it took a long time to get right, and then I have to say, Justin
01:35and Blake just killed it, yeah.
01:37I know Blake also talked about not wanting to play Lily like a delicate flower, so how
01:43were you able to incorporate that into the writing?
01:47Well, there were a lot of conversations early on before we cast, honestly before we even
01:53were at Sony, it was supposed to be a really small indie movie at Wayfair, and then Sony
01:57got involved later, Blake got cast, and it snowballed from there, but we had a lot of
02:01conversations about aging the roles up a little bit, because I wanted audiences who maybe
02:06who have never been victims of abuse, I didn't want them to necessarily think that Lily is
02:13stuck in this relationship because she's young, it's like, oh she's just young, she
02:17doesn't know how to draw boundaries yet, she doesn't know how to say no.
02:21It's like, no, what happens when you're a fully realized grown woman, you have your
02:25own business, you know who you are, you're fun, you're funny, you're smart, but you're
02:30contending with a reality that feels familiar, and it is reminiscent of your childhood trauma,
02:36and that's the piece of your heart that you have yet to heal, and that's the journey of
02:40the film.
02:41Sure, and very quickly, I know some of the cast had talked about advice that they would
02:44give to their younger self, so I was curious to know, what is advice that you would give
02:48to your younger self about love and finding the right partner?
02:53I think you have to learn to love yourself first.
03:00If you're looking for someone else to justify your worth, I think that there's more work
03:06to do.
03:07Especially not until you love yourself, you date yourself, you buy yourself flowers, that
03:13you can really be at peace with yourself in silence for not just five minutes, but for
03:19a couple of hours.
03:21I feel like that's when you're ready to choose wisely and find a partner that is worthy of
03:25you.