In today’s puritanical Hollywood, it’s nice when a pulp thriller full of sex and deadly betrayal finds its way to the big screen. The new film Verity wants to be a Hitchcockian thriller for a new generation. The film has all the ingredients; sex, betrayal, and danger. Unfortunately, the sex is silly and the real betrayal is its insultingly childish screenplay.

Nick Antosca adapted the well-received book by Colleen Hoover. It boggles the mind to think how Hoover and the producers signed off on a screenplay filled with such badly written dialogue. While erotic thrillers were never mistaken for Citizen Kane, many included sharp dialogue (Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat is full of classic lines), palpable erotic fire, and award worthy performances. Brain De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, Body Double, and Femme Fatale took torrid stories of sex and murder and turned them into artistic and erotic triumphs.

Directed by Michael Showalter (a strange choice for a film of this type), Verity is nowhere near what filmmakers like De Palma and Neil LaBute can do with such material. This one is a suspense picture that doesn’t understand how to build suspense.

The sordid tale involves Lowen (Dakota Johnson), a writer who can’t sell enough books and is losing a confidence that barely existed. After witnessing an unnecessarily brutal encounter on the city streets, Lowen meets Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), a helpful stranger, who eventually offers her a job to ghostwrite the final novel in his famous author-wife’s popular book series.

Anne Hathaway is his wife, Verity Crawford, now catatonic after an accident that led her to wheelchair confinement. The writer is unable to speak or move. 

Lowen accepts the offer and treks off to stay with the Crawford family to be closer to the author’s notes. While looking through files, Lowen finds a manuscript that Verity hid from the world. Shocked by what she is reading, Lowen begins to suspect the author of something sinister.

The problems begin with the cast. Anne Hathaway (one of the film’s producers) sees her talents stifled as the film reduces her to badly written voiceovers and flashbacks while mostly keeping her in bed or in a chair, staring into the distance. This could work, but Antosca’s script doesn’t seem interested in exploring ideas. Beyond an important final act where Hathaway’s story leads the film to its one and only creative spark, the actress is an underused prop.

Josh Hartnett is a good actor and does solid work as Jeremy, but as the film snowballs into something preposterous, his performance becomes perfunctory.

Dakota Johnson just doesn’t work. Lowen goes through a myriad of emotions; angry, defeated, nervous, aroused, sad, vicious, terrified, and aggressive. Johnson is incapable of finding any emotion and her flat line readings are quite unfortunate. The actress has been good in a couple of pictures, but doesn’t have the skills to pull off such a multilayered role.

The film’s sex scenes are important to the story and are designed to have the audience in a sweaty state of intoxication, but each moment fails to achieve its desired heat. Hartnett and Johnson have not an ounce of chemistry. Between their goofy pre-coitus dialogue, ridiculously designed sexual encounters, and Dakota Johnson’s comatose performance, the film’s erotic pursuits become unintended farce.

A picture like Verity should be more primal. The characters have an inherent viciousness and the story follows a path where the filmmakers could have fun with its wickedness.

Director Showalter comes from the comedy world and has made some good films. 2005’s The Baxter was his sweet and quirky debut as director. 2017’s touching love story about marriage in sickness and health, The Big Sick, was critically acclaimed and nominated for an Original Screenplay Oscar. In 2021, Showalter would direct The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a film that saw Jessica Chastain receive the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Each of Showalter’s works are different, but all emphasize character and the importance of human connection. His films are funny and sad and honest, which makes the massive misfires within Verity so criminal.

While Showalter is certainly able to find nuggets of humor in a few moments, the scenes of shock land with a thud. His directorial choices cause the film to look and feel like a bad 90s-era USA network movie.

Verity’s story is intriguing and the door was open to some interesting possibilities. A bad screenplay, uninspired direction, and a truly vacuous performance from Dakota Johnson are the major deficits that sink what could have been an effective thriller.



Verity
Screenplay by Nick Antosca, adapting the novel by Colleen Hoover
Directed by Michael Showalter
Starring Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Brady Wagner, Irina Dvorovenko
R, 114 Minutes, Amazon, MGM Studios