Sometimes there are movies that are so silly, so melodramatic, you turn off the more critical part of your brain and lean into the fun. This is exactly how I felt watching VERITY, a sexy psychological thriller with a trio of excellent performances from three of the most watchable actors working today. This is not a movie that is going to win any awards, but it’s going to make for a fiery discussion after the credits roll… and some hilariously campy memes for years to come.
Based on Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, VERITY centers around Lowen (Dakota Johnson), a struggling author who gets the opportunity of a lifetime. She is offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to ghostwrite a new series of novels for best-selling psychological thriller author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway). Verity is known for writing dark books from the villain’s point of view. Unbeknownst to fans, Verity was involved in a car crash that left her severely disabled; she is in a near-comatose state, unable to move or talk, and she certainly can’t write. Her husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) offers to let Lowen come stay with him, Verity, and their young son in the hopes that she can learn Verity’s voice to keep the fans (and the publisher) at bay.
Despite acknowledging the weirdness of the situation, Lowen assimilates with the family, using Verity’s office and notes to better understand the author’s headspace surrounding her next set of novels. However, things start to get weird when Lowen discovers Verity’s hidden autobiography, which has some progressively darker revelations about her life. As Lowen gets more and more comfortable with her new environment (and Jeremy), she also starts to notice weird occurrences around the house, including seeing the immobile Verity out of bed. But as she digs deeper and deeper into Verity’s headspace, she gets uncomfortable with the job assigned to her and starts to question what she knows to be true.
VERITY is completely dependent on the performances of the main acting trio, and it’s hard to get much better than Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson. Is Hathaway’s scenery-chewing performance at times a bit over-the-top? Yes. Does it make sense that her character has an early 1900s mid-Atlantic accent? No. Did I love every bit of it? Absolutely. She knows what film she’s in and her purring narration pulses through the film, seducing you into going along with the film’s more far-fetched plot points. Johnson’s character may admit she has “resting bored face,” but her ability to create an intriguing, enigmatic character makes for the perfect contrast to Hathaway’s energy; lesser actors would have struggled to make Lowen as immediately likable and sympathetic. Hartnett is given a bit less to do in his more straight-laced role, so when he finally breaks down, it makes it even more satisfying.
However, as fun as VERITY is, it is admittedly pretty predictable for a film that is aching to surprise its audience. Apart from one delightfully sadistic twist at the end, the film pretty much goes along with what you’re expecting. Without getting into spoilers, the one exciting surprise involving Johnson and Hartnett in the third act is quickly extinguished when another mystery is unraveled that promptly negates it. Maybe director Michael Showalter was banking too much on the fact that a lot of fans of the book would already know what was coming and there didn’t need to be such a focus on putting the thrills in the psychological thriller.
If you’re worried about bad reviews of VERITY, they’re probably from critics who are taking the film too seriously and can’t have a little fun. Yes, there are some slow, repetitive moments, and yes, you have to be able to go with some of the more outrageous plot points. But if you have an appreciation for Real Housewives and have enjoyed films like THE HOUSEMAID and A SIMPLE FAVOR, you’re going to have a fun time with this one. Some may call it a guilty pleasure watch, but I just call it a pleasure.
My Review: B
