They went soft on the DV ...too arty, and did not succeed in evoking the tension and stress like the book did. I read that book with my breath held in those scenes... the movie failed here.

Axel's character development was dissapointing... his backstory and abuse not revealed.

I understand leaving out the Ellen journals... she not too popular these days ... :)

The two leads were not matched well... though the sister I enjoyed!.

Run time was also too long! I wanted more intensity, fear and confrontation, and for it to begin much sooner.

This was not the Lily I imagined, but Lively played the ditzy, rom-com , sex kitten lead well.

I normally don't take to reading IMDb reviews and when I do I rarely agree with them, with that being said I wholeheartedly agree with every review that is giving the film the same score as I am if not a tad bit lower. Having grown up in an abusive household, the film did hit pretty close to home. Ryle Kincaid (Jason Baldoni) gave a stellar performance which genuinely encapsulates how unpredictable an abuser can be and how manipulative an abuser can be in a dv (domestic violence) relationship. With that being said that's where the entire score for my review comes from; baldoni's performance and direction.

Blake Lively (Lily Bloom) went ahead and gave us basically nothing. There were moments during her performance I thought she had something, and then she lost it as simple as that. It felt like we as the audience were there more so for her outfits and hair than we were for her performance. Reading up on articles that state people have noticed two different films mixed into one, I couldn't help but agree with that. Baldoni's direction was centered around portraying an accurate picture of dv, and actually showing us the viewers this depiction, whereas Blake's version of the movie (as per sources) comes in through her one dimensional performance, weird placement of music in scenes that didn't require the music and if they did the music was just off and again showing us her outfits and luscious hair.

I sincerely hope that if there is a baldoni cut of this film that it gets the light of day as the film I watched just didn't quite do it for me.