Verity
Once again Colleen Hoover strings us along in the latest potboiler based on a bestseller of hers, this one set in the world of pulp literature and bereavement.
The truth will out: Dakota Johnson does her research
Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
If there’s one thing that Colleen Hoover knows a lot about, it’s being a best-selling novelist. Her numerous novels have sold over 20 million copies worldwide and four have made the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list. The fourth big-screen adaptation of one of her bestsellers is set in the world of high-end publishing. Anne Hathaway plays the eponymous Verity Crawford who, due to a certain indisposition, hires another writer to complete the final volume in her series known as The Noble Virtues. It is no coincidence that Verity is her first name, as truth is the one ingredient that she tries to include in all her stories of dark deeds and murder. Without a credible antagonist, she reckons, her novels just wouldn’t hold water.
The film opens on the shorefront of Verity’s palatial glass-and-wood retreat in Vermont. She is being interviewed about her latest tome and her life, she concedes, “to me, it’s all a miracle.” To which her interrogator snidely interjects, “a miracle based on villains.” We’re then greeted by the caption ‘One Year Later’ and are plunged into the opposite end of the literary spectrum. Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), a struggling writer, is reading her latest publication to a crowd of three in a New York bookshop. After this humiliation she receives a call from her agent with good news, asking her to pitch up for a mysterious appointment uptown at 3pm – and is told to look smart. On the way, a cyclist is hit by a car in front of her and most of his blood ends up all over her face and shirt. As she stands there in shock, a tall, handsome stranger (Josh Hartnett) steps forward and guides her to a nearby bathroom to clean up, even offering her his clean shirt. Shortly thereafter, Lowen’s agent ushers her into the plush surroundings of Grand Central Publishing where – would you believe? – the same stranger is sitting there and makes her an offer she can’t refuse…
Colleen Hoover has planted her first narrative hook, as implausible and yet as page-turning as one might expect from the author of It Ends With Us and Regretting You. Under Michael Showalter’s pedestrian direction, what follows is intriguing enough to pass the time as we try to second-guess the next preposterous turn of events. Verity’s gorgeous residence may be worth the price of admission alone, a luxurious stage from the pages of The World of Interiors on which to play out the deceit. Lowen is offered half a million dollars and lavish accommodation to complete Verity’s latest book, where she pours through her notes and personal effects. It’s just as well, as Lowen has just been evicted from her own squalid New York apartment. All this seems too good to be true – which, of course, it is. Still, Josh Hartnett takes his shirt off, Dakota Johnson gets to masturbate in the jacuzzi and the love scenes are choreographed to within an inch of their lives. It’s contrived tosh, but it’s good-looking tosh and there are some really juicy unintentional laughs to savour.
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Brady Wagner, K.K. Moggie, Irina Dvorovenko, Sienna Kulovitz, Tom Galantich, Colleen Hoover.
Dir Michael Showalter, Pro Nick Antosca, Alex Hedlund, Stacey Sher, Michael Showalter, Jordana Mollick, Anne Hathaway and Colleen Hoover, Ex Pro Dakota Johnson, Screenplay Nick Antosca, Ph Jim Frohna, Pro Des Amy Williams, Ed Jon Harris, Music Volker Bertelmann, Costumes Jacqueline Demeterio, Sound Jim Gallivan.
Amazon MGM Studios/Eat the Cat/Semi-Formal Productions/Shiny Penny/Somewhere Pictures/Heartbones Entertainment-Sony Pictures.
116 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 2 October 2026. Cert. 15.
