Verity - Photo Amazon Studios M.G.M.
Verity – Photo Amazon Studios M.G.M.

By Susan Granger

Inspired by Colleen Hoover’s 2018 bestseller, Verity is an erotic psychological thriller, propelled by the screen power of Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett and a stunning woodland house in Armonk, New York.

The convoluted story begins as struggling, insecure author Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) is summoned to Hachette Publishers in mid-town Manhattan. 

En route, a horrific car accident involving a bike messenger leaves Lowen blood-splattered.  A hunky passer-by helps her clean up in a nearby coffee-shop restroom, giving her his white shirt so she can look presentable at the upcoming meeting.

Coincidentally, he turns out to be Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) whose wife, Verity (Anne Hathaway), is a best-selling novelist who can no longer write. An accident left her paralyzed – and the publisher is eager to pay Lowen a hefty fee  to finish the next book in Verity’s popular series, plus ghostwrite two more from the copious notes she left.

To retrieve Verity’s crime-writing files, Lowen moves into the Crawfords’ lavish lakeside Vermont house where likeable Jeremy lives with his eight-year-old son Crew (Brady Wagner), whose twin sister drowned in a canoe accident a few months ago. 

Immobile and catatonic, slyly sinister Verity is there too, tended by a portentous nurse (Irina Dvorovenko).

Predictably, Lowen and Jeremy find each other irresistibly attractive, but their incipient romance is somewhat thwarted when Lowen discovers autobiographical transcripts confessing the terrible things psychopathic Verity may or may not have done. What is fact vs. what is lurid fiction – and who really cares?

So what about that spectacular house? It’s known as Beckoning Path, a mid-century modern estate, designed by Denmark’s Jen Quistgard and built in 1955 by Frank Lloyd Wright protégé Edgar Tafel; it now serves as a wellness retreat center.

Adapted by Nick Antosca (Cape Fear) and directed by Michael Showalter (The Big Sick) with its predictable share of jump-scares, Verity is the latest of Colleen Hoover’s pulpy works to transfer to the silver screen, following It Ends With Us, Regretting You and Reminders of Him.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, Verity is a creepy, melodramatic yet stylish 6, playing in theaters.

Catch up on Susan’s recent reviews:

Susan Granger

Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in Journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has appeared on radio and television as an anchorwoman and movie critic for many years. Read all her reviews at susangranger.com.