Justin Baldoni knows how to direct romance. His years of playing Rafael Solano on "Jane the Virgin" have equipped him with skills that give him an eye for intimacy, a full-bodied embrace of well-worn tropes guaranteed to make a Mother-Daughter movie night overflow with tears, and choosing actors who can make even the most nonsensical dialogue feel lived in. His previous films, "Five Feet Apart" and "Clouds," fall under the same teenage illness romance umbrella, but "It Ends With Us" is only arguably an adult story, as author Colleen Hoover seemingly wrote the book in the format of "YA romance, but this time they're adults!" Baldoni's biggest canvas yet gives the massive challenge of adapting one of the most popular books of the decade for a major studio, all while co-starring as the male lead and juggling the trickiest subject matter of his career.

Blake Lively stars as aspiring florist Lily Blossom Bloom,...