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Verity Review: A Gripping, Steamy Thriller Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett – With a Few Threads Left Dangling
Going in, I wasn't expecting to be as hooked as I was. Verity, adapted from Colleen Hoover's best-selling psychological thriller, follows struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), who's hired to ghostwrite the remaining instalments of a bestselling series after its author, Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), is left unable to speak or move following a mysterious car accident. While living in the Crawford family home, Lowen stumbles on Verity's secret, unfinished autobiography — and the discovery drags her into a spiral of manipulation, obsession and blurred reality involving Verity's husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett).
The Good: A Genuinely Gripping Ride
The film earns its hooks early and keeps tightening them. There's real pleasure in not knowing which version of events to trust — is Verity truly incapacitated, or is this all an elaborate act? — and the film does a solid job of keeping that question alive for most of its runtime. I wasn't the only one caught up in it either: the audience in my screening was audibly reacting throughout, visibly invested in exactly the same way I was.
That said, some of the plot beats are fairly easy to see coming. Without spoiling too much for anyone who hasn't watched it yet, Lowen's relationship with Jeremy develops in a fairly well-worn direction, and genre regulars will likely clock where that's headed well before it gets there. It's a trope rather than a flaw exactly, but it does mean the film's biggest emotional turn lands as more "of course" than "wow."
The whole thing also gave me a distinct Freida McFadden vibe — there's a similar domestic-thriller DNA running through it, the kind of twisty, slightly pulpy "something's not right in this house" energy that made The Housemaid such a hit last year. That's not just me drawing a long bow, either: Deadline's own review made the same connection, noting that Verity arrives "on the heels of last year's sleeper hit The Housemaid, also fronted by two big female stars," and landing, in their view, as comparative "leftovers" next to it, according to Deadline. I'd argue Verity holds its own better than that comparison gives it credit for, but the genre overlap is real — if you liked The Housemaid, or McFadden's books more broadly, this is very much playing in the same sandbox.
The Performances
Dakota Johnson's performance, for me, felt fairly one-note — even in scenes that call for real emotional range, her delivery stayed in roughly the same register throughout, which occasionally undercut moments that should have hit harder.
Josh Hartnett, on the other hand, was a standout, bringing a weight to his role that grounded some of the film's more heightened moments. Anne Hathaway, meanwhile, was solid rather than spectacular here, but she's more than earned the benefit of the doubt given how varied her filmography has proven over the years — critics seem split on her performance too, with some calling it "assured" and others finding it "a bit too grandiose," according to Deep Focus Review and ScreenRant respectively.
The Ending
This is where my enjoyment ran into some genuine confusion, and I wasn't alone there either. Without spoiling specifics, the back half of the film hinges on Jeremy's reaction upon learning the full truth about what happened to his daughter — and it felt strange that his reaction read as shock, given everything that had supposedly already happened earlier in the story. It turns out this exact inconsistency has been debated by readers of the original novel as well: one widely-shared fan discussion on Goodreads raises the same issue, pointing out that "if he had already read the manuscript already then when was his reaction so so convincible," questioning how a character already holding damning information could still react with such surprise later on, according to a Goodreads reader thread.
That same discussion raises a couple of other loose threads worth flagging for anyone who left the cinema turning the ending over, as I did: the letter at the center of the twist was reportedly intended for one character, yet somehow makes its way into the hands of another, with no real explanation for how that happens — and a subplot involving a child being physically hurt is seemingly glossed over without the story reckoning with how dark that detail actually is. None of these completely derail the experience, but they're the kind of thing that nags at you on the drive home.
The Verdict
Despite the loose ends, I'd still recommend Verity for an entertaining, steamy night at the cinema — it's gripping enough to carry you through its runtime, and the Hathaway-Johnson-Hartnett trio is magnetic even when the writing doesn't fully support them. I'm clearly not alone in that mixed-but-positive takeaway: reviews across the board have landed in a similar place, with ScreenRant going as far as calling it "the best Colleen Hoover adaptation yet" and "just plain fun," according to ScreenRant, while outlets like Time Out landed closer to the middle, awarding it 3 out of 5 stars as a "steamy thriller" that "might tickle your fancy," according to Time Out. It isn't a perfect adaptation, and the ending may leave you with a question or two, but as a fun, audience-pleasing watch, it delivered exactly what I wanted from it.
Verity is in Hong Kong cinemas now.
Disclaimer: The writer was invited to the premiere screening by Sony Hong Kong. All observations, assessments, and opinions expressed are based on the writer’s independent experience and professional judgement.
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