Steamy psychothriller Verity (now on VOD platforms like Prime Video) boasts quite the talent discrepancy: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett star, and Michael Showalter of The Big Sick and The Eyes of Tammy Faye directs, all in the service of an adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel (see also: Reminders of Him, It Ends With Us, etc.). Right — we all stumbled over the same realization, that A-listers are obviously getting paid handsomely to star in D-list airport-novel crudola. But there’s always hope that top-flight talent can lean heavily into the stoopid and drum up something entertaining, right? Yeah. Sure!
VERITY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Verity Crawford (Hathaway), a name that’s highly credible and absolutely exists in reality outside of porno, is an uberauthor, a gazillion-seller of pageturners that Get Inside The Minds of their nasty-nasty villains. Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson), also a name that we believe in, like really, really believe in, is a struggling novelist whose live readings are attended by six people distracted by their phones. The former is in the midst of a medical crisis and needs help finishing her next few books. The latter is recruited to do exactly that, but not before she’s so close to an accident that’s she’s splattered with a bicyclist’s blood, and is assisted by the very ludicrously named Jeremy Crawford (Hartnett), who, yes, coincidentally happens to be the husband of Verity.
So far, so plausible then. The lucrative gig means Lowen will move into the colossal Vermont mansion where Jeremy and Verity live with their young son Crew (Brady Wagner), so Lowen can dig through Verity’s reams and reams of notes. Lowen learns that, a year prior, Verity and Jeremy’s daughter drowned during a boating accident in the lake outside said home. Lowen arrives to not just a depressed Verity, but a physically immobile and mentally AWOL Verity, which really explains the NDA Lowen signed. She’ll be writing the bestsellers while the rest of the world is none the wiser.
I’ll tread lightly from here. Avoiding spoilers for all the ludicrous twists, and that. Lowen finds Verity’s secret manuscript. A grim-faced nurse spoon-feeds baby food to Verity. Jeremy looks pretty cute wearing his Jesus and Mary Chain tour shirt while being dada to little Crew. We get flashbacks to Verity and Jeremy’s early life together, so Hathaway has something to do besides look dry and chalky in her wheelchair, and so we can see some hawt sexxxing (including a bit where she takes a horrific bite out of a headboard). Is there a spark of interest between Lowen and Jeremy? Have you ever seen a movie starring attractive folks like Johnson and Hartnett who aren’t attracted to each other? OK, I’m done here for now: NO SPOILAGE.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Lots have rightly drawn comparisons to the similar The Housemaid. But considering how badly I wanted to rescue Johnson from this, what I see is a watery 50 Shades of Grey.
Performance Worth Watching: I guess Hathaway shows the most range here, from vamping in a slinky red dress to vacant in a hospital gown.
Sex And Skin: Schtupping, self-schtupping, DJ topless and/or in skimpies, all scoring about 750k scoville units on the Hawt Movie Sex Scale.
Our Take: Verity is two “ous”es: Ludicrous and hilarious. The latter has to be intentional, because how else to account for Johnson’s meta-self-commentary? “I have resting bored face,” Lowen confesses at one point. “I get that a lot.” It’s hard to be too blasé about this movie, however, as it attempts to red-herring us into trying to predict six or seven possible big third-act twists, dropping in dream sequences, probable hallucinations (or ARE they??????), steamy flashbacks and steamy unflashbacks to keep us amused.
But this is a Colleen Hoover product, which means it’s narratively, ethically, logically, psychologically and character-motivationally confused. Everyone and everything in the story is a device in service of a plot that has no discernible point besides wasting time or showing snatches of celebrity skin. Which is to say any observations Verity may make about human behavior are dubious at best. It reaches a confoundimicating conclusion that’s a quasi-profound rumination on the nature of truth, and it makes the text on a Garbage Pail Kids trading card look like Dostoevsky. Mixed bag here, people. Mixed bag.
Our Call: I guess Verity is entertaining enough in its slipshod trashy brainlessness to warrant a watch, at least in a week or four when it’s streaming for free. So wait to STREAM IT, is what I’m saying.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
