Director: Michael Showalter
Genre: Thriller
Runtime: 117
minutes
Year:
2026
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, Anne Hathaway
Description: Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), hired to ghostwrite
for best-selling author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), uncovers Verity’s autobiographical
notes, and becomes involved in what may prove to be a lethal conspiracy.
Review: The film adaptation of a gripping bestseller always comes with sky-high
expectations, and the psychological thriller “Verity” was no exception.
Directed by Michael Showalter and boasting a star-studded cast featuring Dakota
Johnson, Josh Hartnett and Anne Hathaway, this adaptation seemed like a
guaranteed success on paper. Unfortunately, the film falls well short on the
mark. What should have been a nerve-wrecking ride ends up being a slow and
uneven disappointment that never quite manages to capture the tension of the
source material.
The film follows Lowen
Ashleigh, a struggling author who is hired by Jeremy Crawford to finish writing
the remaining books in a highly successful series. The original author, Jeremy’s
wife Verity Crawford, is at home, seriously injured and incapacitated after a severe
car accident. Lowen moves in with the family at their secluded estate to delve
into Verity’s notes. She soon stumbles upon a hidden, terrifying manuscript in
which Verity makes a gruesome confession about the family’s dark secrets. As the
attraction between Lowen and Jeremy grows, Lowen becomes entangled in a web of
manipulation, and the line between chilling fiction and dangerous reality
begins to blur.
Let’s get right to the
point: the book, written by Colleen Hoover, is far better. While the novel
keeps the reader in a constant stranglehold with psychological paranoia and a
suffocating atmosphere, the film adaptations opts for a pace that can only be
described as boring. The film drags laboriously from one dialogue scene to the
next, with only a few rare, suspenseful moments. As a result, the thrilling
Hitchcock-esque suspense that the filmmaker tried to imitate never really comes
across.
The film’s biggest stumbling
block, however, is the way the acting talent was handled. The casting of the
title role, in particular, is a missed opportunity: Anne Hathaway’s role is
painfully underutilized. Hathaway is a world-class actress, but here she is
reduced to a passive character. Her character never takes on the terrifying,
mysterious menace that the story so desperately needs. Although Johnson and
Hartnett fo their best to keep the chemistry alive, they cannot save the movie.
“Verity” lacks the
much-needed intensity that the book has and gets bogged down in a drawn-out thriller
that leaves fans of the book cold.
Rating: 2/ 5
