Verity

Grade: B

There are some cute in-jokes planted in Verity, based on Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name. A character proclaims that they don’t read the kind of book you can buy at the airport. That’s the niche where Hoover dwells. Somebody also says that someone spends an awful lot of time in the horror/thriller world, and maybe they should switch to romance. Verity is Hoover, who usually dabbles in romance, trying her hand at the thriller genre.

Occasionally, I’ll read a book that I know will be an upcoming movie. I just finished reading Incidents Around the House, which has a film called Other Mommy coming out next week, and I read Verity a couple months ago in preparation for this. Otherwise, I’m all for reading the book after seeing the movie. If you’re seeking out the book, that obviously means you enjoyed the movie enough, and the book will be an expanded version of it, with more blanks filled in. Approaching it the other way around might set you up for disappointment, but I thought Verity, the film, did the novel proud. If you think of Colleen Hoover as the author of It Ends With Us, Regretting You, and Reminders of Him, then Verity will be a different trip into Hooverville.

Dakota Johnson plays Lowen, who is not the most popular novelist in the world, but she is published, with a couple of modest projects to her name. A career-making gig falls into her lap: ghostwriting for a famous horror author who has been left paralyzed by a car accident and is unable to finish her series. She is Verity Crawford. Her husband, Jeremy, invites Lowen to their sprawling home in Vermont to go through Verity’s office and research whatever she needs to, for as long as necessary.

Verity is catatonic, doesn’t speak, and is cared for daily by a nurse. Lowen mainly interacts with Jeremy and Crew (Jeremy and Verity’s young son). Lowen finds an unpublished manuscript of Verity’s, seemingly unread by anyone, much less Jeremy, who admitted to only reading his wife’s first book. It’s an autobiography, chronicling Verity’s early days with Jeremy, to getting married, to having the kids, to Crew’s twin sister’s tragic drowning, right up to her accident. It shows an unrelentingly bleak side to Verity, with all her selfish, nihilistic, sociopathic tendencies.

The book jumps back and forth between Verity’s tell-all diary and the main plot with Lowen, Jeremy, Crew, and the incapacitated Verity in the house. The movie, showing the manuscript’s events to us in flashbacks, gives Anne Hathaway (as Verity) an opportunity to do more than just sit silently in a wheelchair or lie in bed. I was skeptical of the casting of Josh Hartnett as Jeremy. When reading it, I was picturing someone who is attractive but looks more like a conventional nice guy, like Glen Powell or Bradley Cooper. Hartnett won me over, and is my favorite performance in the film. Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway are very good here, and talented enough that each could have played either role. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where this is a Broadway play, with Johnson and Hathaway switching between Lowen and Verity from night to night.

There are two twists. The small one is too obviously signified by showing us things that would have been better left as just reaction shots by other characters, leaving the mystery open as to whether what they were reacting to was actually happening. I was blindsided by the big twist at the end when I read it. It will make you wonder and discuss whether this information is true, or if it’s just another manipulation by the title character. I heavily lean towards it being factual. I bought it.

The movie ends with the book’s “regular ending” and doesn’t get into the extended epilogue. I had a feeling that would happen. As I read that part, I thought, “This would be a good last scene.” Plus, none of the setup that comes back into play in the book’s epilogue was included in the movie. As can be expected, a significant number of plot points (and even characters) didn’t survive the transition to the silver screen, but I didn’t feel short-changed. Director Michael Showalter (The Idea of You, Spoiler Alert, The Eyes of Tammy Faye) preserved the meat and potatoes.

I had a nice time with Verity, both on my device and at the cinema. It’s sexy, thrilling, fun, has an effective score, and, for the most part, everything looked the way I pictured it in my head as I was reading. If you enjoy it, and I think you should, an even better version awaits you on Kindle. Or at the airport.

Grade: B