Author Colleen Hoover’s first feature film adaptation of a novel, It Ends With Us , hits screens this weekend in what’s expected to be a smash hit with her legions of female fans. Fittingly helmed by Jane the Virgin actor and Five Feet Apart filmmaker Justin Baldoni, who also stars, the film captures the emotional complexities of relationships mired in domestic violence and why women decide to stay — or not.

In the same way that Baldoni captured the fragile romance between a young couple dealing with chronic illnesses in the $93 million-grossing 2019 film Five Feet Apart , the director, along with screenwriter Christy Hall, has managed to lift the details of damaged and toxic passions off the page and onto a larger screen. At the same time, he puts himself in the shoes of many women who have dealt with similar struggles, such as Lily Bloom, played by Blake Lively in one of the Gossip Girl alumna’s most earnest performances.

What Baldoni does well, as does the novel, is tell a story about how many relationships that begin with the greatest love can unfortunately turn sour. What fans of the book will notice right away is Baldoni's deft handling of some of the violent scenes on the page with a certain civility—until the very end, when Lily gets a complete rude awakening. What's more, Hall's screenplay largely adheres to the original dialogue in Hoover's novel.

While streamers have cannibalized once-popular genres at the box office, Sony has made it a mission to breathe new life into such features, in this case a romantic drama, one we haven’t seen in a while. Sony and Wayfarer Studios, who both co-financed the film, deliver a polished adaptation of a wildly popular author and novel here, and have a big opening weekend in store. Some box office sources believe a $40 million-plus opening for It Ends With Us isn’t out of the realm of possibility.