Verity Review: Anne Hathaway Captivates in a Thriller That's Never As Saucy As It Should Be
Nick Antosca's script certainly understands its own limitations
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Adaptations have never been hotter than they seem to be over the last few years. With titles specifically aimed at the female market, there's been a lot of discussion about women leading the charge to bring back genres like the '90s erotic thriller. But with readers bringing up how things like BookTok have led to overly simplistic written material, it's starting to plague the movies based on those same novels. Case in point, the cinematic adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel Verity. Two of Hoover's novels have already received the big screen treatment: 2024's It Ends With Us was overshadowed by so much backstage drama most people forget the movie was mid, while Reminders of Him came out earlier this year to little fanfare.
And yet Verity feels more like a test case for the success of Hoover adaptations than either of those two previous films. This one is anchored by big names, particularly Anne Hathaway – the last of a five film run this year – as well as Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. Director Michael Showalter, who previously worked with Hathaway on the romantic adaptation The Idea of You, and screenwriter Nick Antosca certainly seem to understand the '90s female-led thriller genre they're hoping to hew close to. The problem with Verity, though, is that unlike the '90s thrillers of the past that emphasized bug nuts storytelling and hot sex, this one feel too cold and elegant. That sterility often leaves it boring when Anne Hathaway's subtle smirk isn't on the screen.
Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson) is a writer who's been published but isn't popular. That is set to change, though, when she's offered the chance to write the next three books for megastar Verity Crawford (Hathaway). Verity is severely disabled after a car accident, a fact that her husband Jeremy (Hartnett) wants to keep the media from finding out about. Lowen temporarily moves into the family's Vermont home and starts the process of assembling the next book. But her growing curiosity about Verity, alongside her attraction to Jeremy, causes Lowen to think there might be something darker under the picture perfect image.
Verity is very much in the same vein as last year's The Housemaid, itself another adaptation of a popular thriller. Like that film, Verity is a story about a young woman with a seemingly troubled past (though we get absolutely no insight into Lowen's) who sees an opportunity at a better life, and sex with a married man, only to question whether she has all the facts. And, like The Housemaid, Verity is a movie that's empty calories. It's compellingly entertaining even if the overall resolution crumbles if you think about it for more than half a second.
Antosca's script and Showalter's direction concoct so much foreshadowing that, no doubt, existed in Hoover's novel but just feels silly in execution. A serious orchestral score opens the movie as rain pelts the frame. Intermittent voice over details Lowen as a shy, lonely girl who "belong[s] in overpopulated cities" because she's just oh so invisible. Even her first meeting at her publisher's sees her drenched in blood as a biker gets obliterated by a car as she's preparing to cross the street. Blood, rain, and duplicity are in order and it's all telegraphed in the first fifteen-odd minutes.
Johnson is no stranger to cinematic translations of popular women's fiction, having made her bones in the Fifty Shades series. Here, her Lowen Ashleigh seems like a cousin to that novel's Anastasia Steele, albeit with less lip-biting and kink. (There is a drinking game I don't recommend based on how often she tells someone, "Can I ask you a question?") Lowen has been dealing with a sick mother and throughout the movie hints to Jeremy about a past that saw her in therapy as a child. Unfortunately, these are the only glimpses we ever get into Lowen's psychology, which becomes a problem when the third-act finale pops up. Antosca seems to know the limitations of his leading lady, with Johnson saying, with a straight face, that she has "resting bored face." Johnson isn't stretching any acting muscles with this feature. She's the reliable leading lady of a book like this, meant to move the plot along with a bare modicum of characterization and little else.
This isn't helped by the fact that, as a character and as a performance, it is Hathaway's Verity that is far more interesting. Cited as being new and unique for being a woman who writes from the perspective of the villain, the viewer is only given highly curated looks at Verity. We get clips of her Call Her Daddy and Hot Ones appearance – though never once does she eat a wing! – as well as being interviewed by Gayle King. (These moments come off like awkward product placement.) Hathaway brings such a slinkiness to the role that while it reads, on paper, like an Amy Dunne rip-off, the actress bring such a gravitas to it. And where Johnson's finale twist doesn't come off as genuine, there is some intriguing context and deconstruction that goes into the presentation of Verity herself.
The problem is that Verity is meant to be the first Mrs. de Winter of this movie. A ghost that just floats and permeates everything but isn't the actual focus. It's apparent that the goal was to beef things up to justify Hathaway's casting and it's painfully necessary. In the middle, when the focus is on Lowen and Jeremy's relationship, neither actor is compelling enough to keep you from checking your watch.
Hartnett is the weakest link in the chain. He's fine, in the way that all good-looking male characters are in movies/books where they have to care for disabled women. At one point Lowen encourages him to drop the old ball and chain. He's the source of the film's sex scenes which continue a weird trend as we continue to navigate the "to sex scene or not to sex scene" discourse in today's films. The sex here is meant to be saucy and titillating but, too often, seems afraid to show it. A sequence of Verity and Jeremy having sex that sees the former bite her headboard while he performs oral sex on her is completely obscured by words describing the scene overlaid on the actual act. Meanwhile, a sequence of Lowen masturbating in the bathtub plays out unimpeded. We still don't seem to know what women want with scenes like these.
Kristen Lopez
Things go about where one expects with a narrative like this. Again, because everything has been so heavily foreshadowed the twists feel like foregone conclusions. Verity is certainly the best of the Hoover adaptations we've gotten over the last two years, mostly thanks to Anne Hathaway. It's a solid notch about Lifetime movies, but far from the '90s erotic thriller heights. (Less Hand That Rocks the Cradle and more Malice.) It's a worthy reason to get some friends together, have some drinks, and giggle through the whole affair.
Grade: C
Verity is in theaters Friday.
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