Verity plays all the old hits. There’s a few nice moments, but for the most part this is fairly rote fair.
Author Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) is picked to ghost write three novels for superstar author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway). Her husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) makes the choice, as Verity is near catatonic post a car accident and can’t do it herself. But as Lowen takes up residence and starts digging into Verity’s past and mind to complete her series, she finds herself not just increasingly entangled with Jeremy, but getting a deeply disturbing insight into Verity that changes everything.
Another Colleen Hoover adaptation hits the big screens, and this time it’s got a bit of a murder mystery bent. Verity is a pretty rote thriller with a twist you’ll see coming a mile off. And while there are momentary flashes of energy and verve, for the most part it’s a lifeless affair.
Dakota Johnson kind of sleepwalks through this one, and she and Josh Hartnett have absolutely zero chemistry. Johnson also does great work selling Beats by Dr Dre in one of the most inappropriate product placements ever. Hartnett does his best, but between the two of them, there is just no energy here.
The plot too is insufferable. Most of it revolves around Johnson’s character slowly reading diary of a famous author - a document she could have pumped through in one night and turned this movie into a TikTok. Between the insufferable plotting there, and the twists and turns that you can see coming a mile off, the film just never hits a groove.
The one bright spark is Anne Hathaway. She has a wonderful dual role, where sometimes she plays a dastardly unloving mother and murdress, sometimes a near comatose patient, and sometimes a battered wife looking for an escape. There’s a big reveal moment that really hits, one that Hathaway nails. But outside of flashbacks, she is mainly constrained to awkwardly sitting in a chair and delivering some of the worst jump scares of the year, and it never brings enough to outshine the torrid A-line.
In the end, this is a disappointing piece - even by Hoover standards.
