In my review of The Housemaid last winter, I said that trashy novels can sometimes make entertaining movies. Verity is a much poorer example of that, I’m afraid. I started the book and found her writing unreadable, but that’s not a disqualifier for a movie. In fact, it’s the best film ever made from a Colleen Hoover novel, for what that’s worth. Largely, that’s down to two of the performances.
If you haven’t read the book, the movie begins with unsuccessful published novelist Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) receiving a highly secretive offer from her literary agent (Ismael Cruz Cordova). World-famous pulp novelist Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) has suffered a serious car accident and can’t finish the series of crime novels that she promised her publisher, so her New York publishing house has hired Lowen to write the three remaining books for her. In Verity’s palatial home in rural Vermont, Lowen rummages through the author’s notes in the company of Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), their 9-year-old son (Brady Morgan), a full-time nurse (Irina Dvorovenko), and Verity herself, who is just this side of brain-dead.
(I know I’m not the first person to point this out, but what is up with Hoover’s character names? Confess’ protagonist had the first name of Auburn, It Ends With Us had an Atlas and a Ryle, and now this. Would it kill Hoover to write a story about people named Bob and Mary? I half expect W.C. Fields to come on and introduce himself as Eustace P. McGargle.)
Anyway, Verity is supposed to be known for her stories told from the viewpoint of the most bloodthirsty villains. Essentially, she’s a hetero version of Patricia Highsmith, but oh boy, her prose and Hoover’s fall way short of Highsmith, and Nick Antosca’s script does the movie no favors by keeping the focus on her writing. The sentences here are about as toothsome and flavorful as three-day-old white bread: “There is no light where we’re going. Darkness ahead.”
Fortunately, Hoover’s ideas are better than her prose, at least in this work. Lowen finds a hidden thumb drive in Verity’s office containing the draft of a memoir where the famous author describes thinking long and hard about killing her own children, one of whom actually has died in a recent boating accident. The flashbacks give Hathaway the latitude to do some of her best acting in this busy year for her, portraying a mother tormented by her impulses to do the unthinkable. The timing of the release after the uproar over the real-life Lindsay Clancy murder trial doesn’t hurt the movie, either.
Hartnett also does some terrific work as a doting father and husband who’s in terrible pain underneath his façade as a courteous host. Director Michael Showalter is better known for his comedies, and he does best when the movie ventures into horror territory, as Lowen keeps seeing Verity walking the halls even though the famed author is supposed to be paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. The film really could have used more of this and more jokes, though there is an amusing bit when Lowen watches a YouTube clip of Sean Evans interviewing Verity over his trademark spicy chicken wings on Hot Ones.
Alas, Showalter doesn’t have the instincts to give this movie the zip of a good thriller. Before Lowen arrives at Verity’s house, the whole thing moves at a sluggish pace. The filmmakers never deign to tell us what job it is that keeps pulling Jeremy away from his home and leaving Verity alone with the children for weeks at a time. (She’s earning enough money that the family doesn’t need his salary, and if he’s working for personal fulfillment, what is he doing?) Johnson is about as assertive as an overcooked noodle, and it beggars belief that Lowen never thinks that the memoir might be a piece of fiction. What is that masturbation fantasy doing here? Your guess is as good as mine.
Despite its burst of energy near the end, Verity is done in by the holes in its plot and its lack of consistency. Some of my colleagues might figure that Hoover’s readers are too undiscerning to care. Me, I think they deserve better craftsmanship and smarter writing than they get here.
Verity
Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett. Directed by Michael Showalter. Written by Nick Antosca, based on Colleen Hoover’s novel. Rated R.
