Verity: Movie Review

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Córdova
Director: John Showalter

In the 1990s, the lurid, pulpy erotic thriller was a mainstay of straight-to-video releases and low-rent cinemas.

But for every Basic Instinct, there was a Jade, thrillers with potential, big names, lascivious moments and yet offering so little vicarious pleasure to those willing to endure their 90 minutes run time.

The latest one - which to be disrespectful to Jade - is quite frankly, a waste of everyone's time - both talent and audiences.

Based on Colleen Hoover's novel of the same name, Verity stars Anne Hathaway as ferociously successful writer Verity Crawford, an author who's made her fortune on pulpy novels from the villain's point of view. In contrast to Verity's stella success, a somewhat limp Johnson is struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh, who's giving book readings to a handful of people without joy. 

When she's asked to go to the Crawfords to write for a newly paralysed Verity, she's unsure of whether she has the talent to do so. But egged on by the enthusiasm of Verity's husband Jeremy (Hartnett, out to show Brandon Sklenar who came first), Lowen reluctantly moves to remote Vermont to take up the position. 

However, she soon discovers another side to the paradise she's elected to be part of.

Clearly aiming for trashy edges, and with some darkness hinting throughout (infanticide, murder, lust), Verity wants to be a great addition to the pantheon of pulp but in truth, this turgid, slow-moving trainwreck of a thriller is derailed early on by crucially forgetting to be a thriller first and foremost.

With the most obvious of twists signposted at the start and with a back third loaded with sudden revelatory exposition that will elicit a yawn rather than a gasp, Verity stumbles towards mediocrity with arms wide open.

Copious voiceovers as Hathaway reads from a discovered manuscript doesn't make for a compelling film and there's little chemistry between Hartnett and Johnson to cling onto either. With soundtrack-led jump scares, weird product placement for Call Her Daddy podcast and Hot Ones, the film's an odd mix of nothing seriously substantial, thrown together by a director whose TV work drips with suspense and drama.

Hathaway's largely confined to looking like a 1940s femme fatale with red lipstick and dress to match early on in flashbacks, before the endgame narrative thrusts her character into the spotlight. But by then, it's all too late to make anyone care at all.

At one point, Hartnett's Jeremy asks Johnson's Lowen if she's having fun. To which she replies, "Yes, but I have resting bored face." After nearly two hours of plodding tedium, most of the audience may disagree with the first part of that sentiment, but wholeheartedly will embrace the second half.