Verity
When aspiring writer Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) bunks in at the Crawford estate to ghost write for a famous author, she's surprised to find her unresponsive in a wheelchair, then discovers a disturbing, unpublished autobiography on a thumbdrive hidden in a cigarette pack in her office desk. As Lowen continues to peruse these autobiographical confessions, she begins to wonder if she should trust "Verity."
Laura's Review: C-
When Lowen is initially offered the financially lucrative ghostwriting job, she's asked if she has read any of Verity Crawford's (Anne Hathaway) books. 'I never read a book I could buy at the airport,' she replies, which is how I feel about this movie. Director Michael Showalter ("The Big Sick," "The Idea of You") gives everything a seductive gloss, but Nick Antosca's ("Antlers") adaptation of Colleen "It Ends With Us/Regretting You/Reminders of Him" Hoover's book features risible dialogue, a nonsensical plot and inconsistent behavior.
Take Lowen's first meeting with who she will later learn is Verity's husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett). As she's waiting to cross a Manhattan street on her way to that meeting at Hatchett Book Group, a bike messenger is hit by a car in the intersection, dousing Lowen with so much blood it's as it someone's jugular had been slashed a foot in front of her. A handsome stranger approaches asking if she's alright, then takes her into a men's room to wash up, giving her his white shirt. He'll be wearing a dark blue one when she walks into the conference room with her agent (and implied sometime romantic partner) Corey (Ismael Cruz Cordova, "Miss Bala") and when she turns down the offer of a three book deal at $75K a piece made by Amanda Thomas (K.K. Moggie) because she doesn't think she can write with Verity's voice, it will be Jeremy who convinces her to take it in private, stating that she can stay with them in Vermont, that Verity read her book 'Open Ended' and thought she was a great undiscovered talent and that the publisher had low-balled her and she should ask for half a million.
If nothing else, Hoover does repeat her themes, beginning with the titular character's name, a woman whose truth will be legitimately questioned. Later, Jeremy will need to wash off blood when his son Crew (Brady Wagner) bizarrely cuts his tongue on a knife, a fluid that also features prominently in his wife's books. Validation will be another parallel thread. But other things, like Verity's wavering condition, the places she hides notes and her somewhat sinister nurse Anna (Irina Dvorovenko) who ends up figuring not at all into the plot, don't really add up and our heroine's moral compass doesn't engender much empathy. Jeremy also knows things, like who Lowen is before that meeting and something far less trivial later, that call subsequent actions into question.
Everyone looks smashing - if Hathaway is required to be makeup free and catatonic throughout much of the film, she's initially introduced during an interview with Gayle King looking model perfect. Showalter also features her in flashbacks, often in triple superimposition as we see Johnson reading what she's written, her words also appearing on screen. He served Hathaway much better in his streaming romcom though, this one a sorry end to her jam packed year. Production designer Amy Williams ("The Idea of You," "Death of a Unicorn") provides one of those architecturally interesting modernist homes on a lake that becomes its own character, also housing Lowen in a realistic apartment in Manhattan, but Volker Bertelmann's ("Conclave") string score is run-of-the-mill.
"Verity" will be trashy fun for some, but it's throwaway cinema. (For the record, there were several burst of unintended laughter from the audience during the screening I attended.)
Amazon/MGM releases "Verity" in theaters on 10/2/26.
