Verity

Verity improves upon nearly everything that didn’t work for me about Colleen Hoover’s 2018 potboiler of the same name. That pesky early scene that made the ending predictable is wisely moved to a late flashback. The movie spares viewers hours of Hoover’s tedious prose (prolonged torture, especially when the reader can see the twist coming a mile away) by cutting it to a movie-average two hours. Moreover, Hoover’s thin characters come to life through the attractive trio of Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett—A-list actors who elevate B-grade trash. But as a fan of well-assembled rubbish like this, I mean that as a compliment. Michael Showalter directs the rare book adaptation that improves upon its source, turning an airport page-turner into a deliciously dumb thriller that’s bound to be panned by other critics and voraciously consumed by the average moviegoer.

Since his days on MTV’s The State and his memorable role as Coop in Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Showalter has become a solid journeyman director, helming a range of lightly comic features, from indie darlings (The Big Sick, 2017) to the biography The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021). Amazon MGM Studios produced his last two movies with mixed results. The Idea of You (2024) was a pleasant May-December romance between Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, but last year’s Oh. What. Fun. was a cloying Christmas movie that somehow squandered Michelle Pfeiffer. That aside, Showalter continues his relationship with the studio and Hathaway, overseeing something completely outside of his usual domain.

Working from an adaptation by screenwriter Nick Antosca (creator of the spooky anthology series Channel Zero), Showalter turns Verity into the sort of juicy erotic thriller I usually enjoy. It evokes an era of ’90s cinema in which the cushy lives of good-looking yuppies come undone through temptation and murder—think Single White Female (1992), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), or The Crush (1993). Hoover’s book-club mystery is a decidedly adult affair, full of torrid sex and paranoia, although she usually writes romance and young adult fiction. And while the author’s name has been somewhat sullied by association with the controversy surrounding the 2024 adaptation of her book It Ends with Us, Verity might help restore the faith of any disenchanted fans.

Hathaway stars as Verity Crawford, a famous author who describes her success (she appears on Call Her Daddy and Hot Ones) as a “miracle built on villains.” She’s renowned for writing from the perspective of rogues and evildoers. But after a car accident, she’s immobilized and catatonic. Her publishers reach out to Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson), a struggling but talented writer, to ghostwrite the rest of Verity’s popular book series. Needing the lucrative payday, she agrees, though it means spending weeks in Verity’s house, poring over her notes and outlines. She becomes a houseguest of Verity’s irresistible husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), and their young boy, Crew (Brady Wagner). Jeremy, still reeling from the trauma of losing Crew’s twin sister in a canoeing accident on Verity’s watch, oversees his wife’s care in the house. Before long, Lowen and Jeremy are drawn to each other romantically, which Lowen doesn’t feel too guilty about since she discovers Verity might be a monster. Lowen finds a secret autobiography in which Verity reveals herself as selfish, manipulative, and even murderous.

Shot with moody lighting by cinematographer Jim Frohna, Showalter’s production looks sharp, thanks in part to rural locations filmed in Upstate New York and one of those ridiculously gorgeous houses that seem to exist only in the movies. Verity has been edited by Jay Cassidy and Showalter, who use a profusion of pans over Verity’s chilling confessional text—sometimes opaque, sometimes in semi-transparent overlays as Lowen reads. The film also relies on too many framing devices, including Lowen’s intermittent narration, Verity’s voiceover as Lowen reads, and Lowen’s visualizations of scenes from Verity’s text. Elsewhere, cinephiles will notice Showalter’s heavy-handed homages to classic thrillers, such as the notorious drowning scene from Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

Structurally, the movie feels jumbled, but the cast and central mystery keep our attention. Johnson, no stranger to horny book adaptations after the Fifty Shades trilogy, is well cast here, with the script seemingly remarking on the performer’s signature aloofness in Lowen’s “resting bored face.” Her smoldering chemistry with Hartnett materializes in tasteful, decidedly untawdry sex scenes. They look conspicuously tame next to Hoover’s descriptions. Hathaway, who spends most of the story proper motionless in a wheelchair, is assured in the eponymous role. In scenes drawn from the autobiography and projected from Lowen’s mind, Hathaway captures her character’s psychopathic edge in a performance reminiscent of her part in the underseen Mother’s Instinct (2024).

Verity, of course, derives from the root verus, meaning truth—and it’s Hoover’s unsubtle prompt for the reader (or viewer) to question everything onscreen. Sure enough, Antosca and Showalter introduce a wrinkle in the final moments (back to that Hot Ones interview, which is a strange way to end the movie) that raises questions about what really happens. Just as in the book, it’s a tacked-on ending that feels like a writerly device. However, it works better in the movie than in the source material, despite its underwhelming obviousness. Even so, the material’s misdirections are effective, largely because watching this cast in such pulpy roles is fun—a steamy guilty pleasure that will surely dry up and crack under close scrutiny.