There’s a lot of good things going for Verity. First of all, its cast is amazing. Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett, I love these actors. The premise looks enticing: a writer is asked to ghost write the book of an author of a popular series after she gets into an accident, but not all is as it seems. And then there’s the genre. From my initial impression of the trailer, I thought it was going to be a horror film, but it’s actually more of an erotic thriller, which is just as good. As the movie progressed, though, I started to feel that its ambitions were not quite being achieved and that the film was veering into camp territory. Seeing Hathaway and Johnson’s performances sort of sealed it for me. It helps that director Michael Showalter is also a comedian, so there is an underlying understanding in the film’s structure and presentation that it should lean into those campy elements.
Unfortunately, the film is neither campy enough nor erotic enough to fully embrace its potential.
Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer who is propositioned to finish the last three books of a popular series by Verity Crawford (Hathaway), who is unable to finish the book. She is encouraged by Verity’s husband, Jeremy (Hartnett), to accept the offer because Verity read her work and thought she was very good. The money offered, an attraction to Jeremy, and the praise given are enough for Lowen to take the job. She drives up to Vermont to stay in Jeremy and Verity’s house for a few days, going through all of Verity’s notes and outlines to start writing. There, she discovers Verity is now a paraplegic and can no longer talk or move. As Lowen begins her work, she is drawn into Verity’s life after finding an unpublished autobiography amongst her files, and a secret that turns her whole world upside down.
From the beginning, we are already made aware of Lowen’s mental state. Her mother died just a week prior, she’s being evicted from her place, her books are not selling well, and she takes medication daily, which tells us she’s not in the best frame of mind. So her choices become questionable every step of the way. When she starts seeing Verity move, we think that either one, she is going crazy or two, something else is going on. The film ensures that both possibilities could be true to mess with us.
Hartnett is so effective at playing Jeremy. As a loving father and husband, it’s easy to see why Lowen’s attraction to him grows stronger and stronger as the film unfolds. He has a gentle, everyman aura, and the care he shows Lowen can be enticing for a woman all wrung out by life. Johnson approaches the role with a delicate touch, oftentimes she’s a blank slate (likely due to the meds), but in later scenes, she becomes increasingly attached and invested. There are a wink and a smile to her performance that tells us she’s in on the joke, especially since her character can be a little silly. Hathaway, though, who appears primarily through flashbacks and interviews, really has fun with the role. Verity is a dangerous woman with dark, twisted thoughts, much like her books, and Hathaway clearly enjoys playing the villain, which makes us enjoy watching it all the more.
But the film relies on unnecessary jump scares to amp up the tension, and the sex scenes and nudity feel tame for the darkness at the core of the story. It has an R-16 rating after all, and for it to fully embrace its genre, it needs to get messier and sexier so we can truly feel that the movie is entering dangerous territory. For a film to be genuine camp, it has to be dead serious in its ambitions and fail spectacularly to earn that distinction. The film, though, knows it is a little silly but doesn’t totally commit to it. It also features a soundtrack with some songs that sound very “of the moment,” which undercuts the campiness of it all.
The film has quite a lot of twists and turns in its plot, which is all fine and good, but its final reveal and chosen conclusion run contrary to what it tries to make us believe. Instead of leaving me feeling amazed and impressed by the manipulation of my thoughts and feelings, the explanation of the film’s actual truth just doesn’t carry me over to its intended emotional destination, even if it was set up earlier.
My Rating: 2 Stars
Curious to see Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett unravel this twisted thriller on the big screen? Verity is showing in theaters nationwide. Catch it at a cinema near you, click here for showtimes.
