Verity
Verity Crawford is one of the most popular authors in the world, writing beach reads about terrible people committing acts of evil. When she becomes catatonic following a car accident, her husband, Jeremy, hires Lowen, a semi-obscure author in the same genre, to finish Verity’s book series. While exploring Verity’s study, Lowen uncovers a secret manuscript that makes her question everything.
Verity (based on the 2018 novel by Colleen Hoover) wants to be a twisty thriller that makes the viewer unsure of what to believe. It tries to layer in dark surprises, turning this into an endless rabbit hole of lies, betrayal and anger, with no innocents. Truth is a shifting concept.
That is a promising idea for something moody and suspenseful. It has the look: a sleek house shrouded in mystery, with a lake in the backyard that was the site of a tragedy. The three lead actors were well-cast for their beauty and presence. They are also skilled enough to deliver cheesy, on-the-nose dialogue without sounding ridiculous. Director Michael Showalter, making his first thriller, does an acceptable job with location, using the Crawford house as a place where an unspeakable act could be around any corner. Still, he mostly relies on his performers to maintain tension.
The lack of nuance is intentional, in that it is supposed to make the viewer certain of one reality, before the rug gets pulled out, exposing different possibilities. The problem is that the screenplay allows us to get ahead of the story, in an effort to trick us. However, we get multiple steps ahead to the point where we either guess correctly or our speculation turns out to be more interesting than where the story actually ends up going.
The first half is decent setup helped immensely by the charm of Dakota Johnson, convincing as a woman desperate enough for a big payday that she is willing to disguise her writing as someone else’s, the sincerity of Josh Hartnett, as a man who wants his beloved wife’s legacy to live on, and the haunting specter of Anne Hathaway, unmoving, yet somehow in control. Of course, all of them are hiding something. It is like a cross between The Housemaid and Rebecca, trying for the sensationalism of both, but not quite delivering.
All three actors do strong work. Hathaway is the one we are supposed to suspect and she is very good at suggesting sinister motivations behind her elegance. As Lowen reads the manuscript, revealed to be Verity’s memoir, we get glimpses inside her mind. Or do we? Hathaway has fun teasing possibilities. Josh Hartnett, as Jeremy, toes the line between grief and hope effectively. He is good at making you wonder what lies beneath his bland façade. Dakota Johnson is the most impressive, entering as the naïve protagonist who seems to be falling under the spell of both Crawfords, though hinting that there is more going on in her head than Lowen lets on. Each of them is up to something.
The second half, with spooky developments and logic-defying twists, is a letdown. Verity (111 minutes, minus the end credits) is way less clever than it thinks it is. It wants its audience to walk out of the theater debating what to believe. The audience is more likely to walk out shaking their heads and joking about plot holes. Said plot, with its talk of darkness and questioning everything, is all bark, little bite. It wants to play with expectations, deceiving us until we don’t know what honesty is. It winds up too goofy to work. It is entertaining, I will give it that. It just isn’t very good.
2¾ out of 5
Cast:
Dakota Johnson as Lowen Ashleigh
Anne Hathaway as Verity Crawford
Josh Hartnett as Jeremy Crawford
Brady Wagner as Crew Crawford
Directed by Michael Showalter
Screenplay by Nick Antosca
Comments