‘VERITY’ Review: Anne Hathaway & Dakota Johnson Are a Scream In Campy Colleen Hoover Adaptation

Courtney Howard // Film Critic

VERITY

Rated R, 1 hour and 57 minutes

Directed by: Michael Showalter

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, Irina Dvorovenko, Brady Wagner

BookTok’s favorite author Colleen Hoover has had 3 of her novels brought to life on the silver screen with none of them hitting their marks. IT ENDS WITH US crashed and burned, ending up in a contentious war between its star and director/ co-star. REGRETTING YOU and REMINDERS OF HIM also didn’t translate to critical, nor commercial acclaim. While the 3^rd time wasn’t the charm, the 4^th time assuredly is for lovers of lurid trashterpieces. Director Michael Showalter and screenwriter Nick Antosca understood their assignment adapting VERITY, Hoover’s most bonkers offering yet. Part tawdry, 90s-style erotic thriller, part neo-gothic hagsploitation flick, it plays like dumbed-down du Maurier with a former woman of the house’s ghost-like presence haunting the interloping new gal in her remote mid-century home. And it’s exactly my kind of stupid, silly smut.

Mild-mannered Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) is a mystery novel author toiling away in obscurity, poverty and grief when she meet-cutes her new employer Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) at a crosswalk in New York City. Together they witness the gruesome death of a bike messenger, leaving Lowen covered in blood and desperately needing psychological counselling, but instead engaging in a trauma-dump competition with Jeremy in a coffee shop bathroom. She’s dealing with the aftermath of her mom’s death and an eviction notice and he’s dealing with the fallout from his young daughter’s drowning and his wife’s car accident that’s left her catatonic.

As it turns out, Jeremy’s wife is the glamourous best-selling author Verity (Anne Hathaway). Her publishing company desperately needs Lowen to help them complete her popular book series. They’ll pay her more money than she’s ever known to write the final 3 books in Verity’s voice, which are all told from the perspective of her femme fatales. Lowen just needs to move into the Crawford family home and pore over Verity’s scattered notes for direction. Trouble is, after Lowen’s initial reticence abates, she starts getting too comfortable in the home and becomes haunted by a ham-handedly (though as we find out later, deliberately so) hidden manuscript of Verity’s confessional autobiography concealing deep, dark and monstrous secrets. And when she starts falling for Jeremy, Verity’s ghostly presence makes herself known. Havoc, as well as intentional and unintentional hilarity ensues.

The unreliable narrator trope has been popular in women’s fiction, but reached new, celebrated heights with GONE GIRL. THE HOUSEMAID also proved a strong adaptation. VERITY, which also plays around with the concept, ranks as a step below last year’s model as it doesn’t quite manage to stick its landing, nor deliver a similar, gleefully deranged conclusion. It struggles to wrap up its sentiments surrounding the severity of Lowen’s consequences. Still, it’s a veritable buffet of tawdry, entertainingly ridiculous happenings perfect for “so-bad-it’s-good” movie lovers. The film’s 3^rd act feels designed to reach heights of outlandish absurdity, especially when the painfully obvious twist reveals itself and we think, “You’re telling me trained doctors and detectives were fooled by any of this?!”

Showalter and Antosca class up the crudely conceptualized aspects, giving the proceedings a scintillating Highsmith and Hitchcockian edge. Anna (Irina Dvorovenko), Verity’s in-home caretaker, is a literal red-haired red herring. Though it seems she’ll be used more, she’s hilariously not. Deploying split diopters to intone characters’ personal paranoias and God’s Eye overhead shots to connote judgement upon characters’ scornful misdeeds amps up the tension – and the campy comedy of these situations. The filmmakers also put more of an emphasis on the ladies’ dueling egos and the dualities of their identities. Lowen’s jealousy competing with the ineffable legacy of the paralyzed matriarch gets her into silly amounts of trouble, from her stop-at-nothing desires to put her teeth marks on the headboard to completely taking over the role of mother and lover.

Setting the story in the frozen dead of a Vermont winter adds to the atmosphere. When Lowen arrives, scraggly trees encroach on the space surrounding the family home and a crunchy blanket of snow softly drapes the grounds. Natural rock formations even butt into the home, taking up space in Verity’s office. Of course, this all thaws once Jeremy warms to her impulsive romantic advances. Amy Williams’ production design also augments the tonal pull. Copious shots of the lake house’s multi-gabled roof (as if the Crawfords’ architect read Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables said, “Fuck it! We’re doing NINE on my creation!”), in addition to the sharp points on the dining room table and lampshades mirror prickly character designs and acuminous motivations, but mainly the love triangle. The home’s velvety peach sunken conversation pit echoes Lowen and Verity’s dastardly personas and desires they’ve repressed. Jacqueline Demeterio’s costume design is key, keeping Jeremy in dark colors, a thriving Verity in saturated colors (bold reds, especially) and Lowen in dowdy beiges. Fuzzy sweaters on sweaters are the name of the game here too, which adds to the comedic lunacy.

Psychosexual tension and intrigue percolate to a steady rolling boil thanks to its two leading ladies, who are completely game for the preposterous elements. Hathaway relishes in Verity’s deviously deranged, psychopathic narration. Her villainous voice-overs layered on top of DRUNK HISTORY-esque reenactments – sequences Lowen is envisioning in her head while reading Verity’s memoir – are a hoot and a half. Johnson excels whenever her real, droll sense of humor comes into play, flirting and bantering with Hartnett and bonding with Brady Wagner, who plays Verity’s son Crew. Hartnett does a tightrope walk, and finds the right amount of comedic broadness to dial into.

VERITY knows what it is and doesn’t try too hard to fool us into thinking it’s better than its auspicious beginnings as a junky airport novel or mindless beach read. They put a decent shine on it, however. And with this palate cleanse to stuffy award season films, I feel born anew.

Grade: B

VERITY is in theaters on October 2.