A little-known author is hired to write on behalf of a literary celebrity in a catatonic state, in an adaptation of a Colleen Hoover work that explores the stories we tell ourselves about others.
Colleen Hoover, author of *It Ends with Us*, doesn't usually make a habit of painting women in a bad light (male writers have practically cornered that market since before the printing press was invented); that is why it is so curious that the latest film based on her books seems intent on convincing us that its protagonist—a grief-stricken mother left catatonic after a recent car accident, now requiring constant care from a stern Ukrainian nurse who tube-feeds her between diaper changes—is, in reality, a hellish harpy.
Director: Michael Showalter
Writers Nick Antosca, Colleen Hoover
Stars: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett
Faithfully adapted from Hoover’s 2018 bestseller of the same name, *Verity*—directed by Michael Showalter—is an absurd psychological thriller, as cold and acidic as the wine cocktail that ought to come free with every ticket. It is also a film whose pleasures—as contrived as they are entertaining, much like those of the original work—hinge on the fact that people will seize any excuse to tear down a successful woman. And while men are the undisputed kings in this regard, women are just as capable of falling into that trap, especially when they feel another woman’s success has come at the expense of their own. Such is human nature! How wonderful.
Colleen Hoover, author of *It Ends with Us*, doesn't usually make a habit of painting women in a bad light (male writers have practically cornered that market since before the printing press was invented); That is why it is so curious that the latest film based on her books seems intent on convincing us that its protagonist—a grief-stricken mother left catatonic after a recent car accident, now requiring constant care from a stern Ukrainian nurse who tube-feeds her between diaper changes—is actually a hellish harpy. Anne Hathaway would never do such a thing!… Or would she? Faithfully adapted from Hoover’s 2018 bestseller of the same name, Michael Showalter’s *Verity* is a wild psychological thriller, as cold and acidic as the wine cocktail that ought to come free with every ticket. It is also a film whose pleasures—as contrived as they are entertaining, much like the source material—feed on people’s eagerness to find any excuse to tear down a successful woman. And while men often take the prize in this regard, women are just as capable of falling into that trap, especially when they perceive another woman’s success as coming at the expense of their own. Such is human nature! What can you do?
In fact, it is "local author" Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) who scoffs at the idea of working as a ghostwriter for the next installment in Verity Crawford’s wildly popular literary saga. It is Lowen who rolls her eyes at the sort of airport paperbacks that have made Hoover a multi-millionaire several times over; And it is Lowen who becomes hooked on the unfinished autobiography she finds on a USB drive inside a locked drawer of Verity’s desk—a memoir that is ruthless toward the self yet devoid of any remorse, in which Verity reveals herself to be one of the literary world’s greatest "monsters" since the days of Cathy Ames.
But... we get it. I mean, of course we feel terrible about the death of Verity’s young daughter in a canoeing accident—even if Nick Antosca’s script downplays the magnitude of the tragedy as presented in the novel—but that part of our brain corrupted by the true-crime genre (compounded by centuries of misogynistic suspicion) can’t help but view the mother with skepticism for having survived the very same event. Verity built an empire out of trash, fell victim to the plot of a tawdry melodrama, and shortly thereafter crashed head-on into a tree; in doing so, she left her husband—a dream man and incredibly attractive father (Josh Hartnett as Jeremy Crawford)—to raise their son alone inside the cavernous, Jens Quistgaard-designed glass mansion that her "violent and miraculous career" had purchased for the family somewhere in upstate New York.
And then there is the Anne Hathaway factor. Lowen, who is equally beautiful, may harbor a grudge against Verity for capitalizing on her looks whenever possible (even in her audiobooks, which the literary phenomenon recorded using a cartoonishly pornographic voice), but we sense she also resents her for having squandered them. For having left behind a picture-perfect life. If she didn't feel that resentment at the start, she certainly does after reading the part about...
While both drawing upon and distancing himself from his sociopathic turn in *Trap*, Hartnett is magnificent as the kind-eyed trophy husband who has paid a steep price for his wife’s success. Convention dictates that we shouldn't trust him—much as one should always be wary of someone who somehow sports both a dad bod and chiseled abs—yet there is an innocence to Jeremy (a credit to Hoover’s script) that Hartnett steadfastly refuses to abandon. And fans of the book’s character details need not worry: just as in the original work, everyone Jeremy sleeps with is so overcome by ecstasy that they begin compulsively biting the headboard.
Johnson is even better in a role that could have been thankless in the hands of a less elusive or convincing actress. Lowen is underwritten on the page (to say the film glosses over her mother’s recent death would be an understatement), but Johnson possesses an uncanny gift for palpably processing the truth of every moment; we can almost see Lowen’s empathy warring with her own desires. Verity’s pain becomes her own, until everything else belonging to Verity begins to become hers as well. Furthermore, Johnson’s opening scene—hilarious yet macabre, and worthy of being immortalized with a plaque or, at the very least, a temporary photo op at the intersection of 41st Street and Park Avenue—evoked fond memories of Luca Guadagnino’s *Suspiria* remake, an unjustly underrated film that, if memory serves, was also bankrolled by Jeff Bezos.
Ruining the *Washington Post* is merely a hobby; his true passion is paying to have Dakota Johnson covered in blood. I worry I might be making this pulpy page-turner—lurid, though perhaps not lurid enough—seem more nuanced and intellectually ambitious than it actually is; yet *The Housemaid*, released last year, clearly reminded us that a fine actress can elevate this sort of material enough to make it enjoyable on its own terms. "Verity" presents two sides of this coin, and Hathaway seems to relish playing a full-blown succubus during the story’s melodramatic flashbacks. Motionless and staring vacantly from her wheelchair, she invites the reader to project all manner of raw emotions onto her inert body; and even though we know a series of ridiculous third-act twists will upend the assumptions we’ve been led to adopt, it is hard not to pity Verity as Jeremy—subtly channeling *Vertigo*—molds Lowen into an improved version of his wife.
However, no matter how ridiculous those twists may be—and some defy credibility even by the standards of a mass-market thriller—the film’s ultimate impact lies in the speed with which we have jumped from one hypothesis to another throughout the plot. Our brains are narrative engines that cannot help but fit the people we meet—and the stories we tell about them—into the molds and clichés that allow us to make sense of the world, however imperfectly. Fiction holds real power—even the kind often dismissed by "serious writers"—but much of that power can be demystified if we simply pause and make room for ambiguity. *Verity* would fall apart if it offered us that opportunity, but this atmospheric, commercial thriller systematically denies it to its characters—or at least goads them into denying it to themselves.
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