Joe McConnell
How does it do? It ends with us describe Ryle’s abuse?
The film’s handling of domestic violence is a major departure from the books, even though the scenes play out completely differently. In the novel, when Ryle burns his hand, he doesn’t push Lily down until she tries to cool it under the sink, whereas in the film it happens immediately after she touches the hot surface.
In that scene in the book, Lily is supposedly laughing uncontrollably due to drunkenness (until Ryle becomes violent). “Damn, Lily,” Ryle tells her in the book. “This is not funny. This hand is my fucking career.”
And after pushing Lily down the stairs in the book, she kicks Ryle out of the apartment, leaving him to sleep in the hallway all night.
Even the dialogues about abuse develop differently in the film. For starters, in the movie Ryle doesn’t learn about Lily’s family history of domestic violence until the two have been dating for a while, whereas in the book this happens on the first night they meet.
A new addition to the film is a touching conversation between Lily and her sister-in-law Allyssa (Jenny Slate) after she discovers Ryle’s violent behavior and tells Lily that Ryle accidentally shot her brother when they were children. In the book, it is Ryle who explains to Lily how her brother died, and Allyssa never tells Lily that she shouldn’t take Ryle back because of his violent behavior.
