Verity

"Lowen" (Dakota Johnson) has just left a sparsely-attended book signing when her agent tells her she might have an opportunity to make some proper cash. That involves her doing a bit of collaboration with the well-established best-seller "Verity" (Anne Hathaway) who has become temporarily incapacitated. She's very anxious about taking on this responsibility, but the poorly author's husband "Jeremy" (Josh Hartnett) - with whom she'd already had an unfortunate encounter en-route to the meeting - convinces her to give it a go and to move in with them at their remote and luxurious Montana home. It's once she is there that she discovers just what is wrong with "Verity" and also a manuscript on a hidden flash drive that provides her with quite a ghastly narrative of the goings-on within this marriage. All the while she is finding herself increasingly drawn to "Jeremy" and their young son...

The psychological thriller sets up an intriguing, twisted premise filled with dark secrets and moral ambiguity. Unraveling the hidden manuscript inside an unsettling household provides genuine suspense, giving the story enough eerie tension to make it a good, engaging watch overall. Dakota Johnson is absolutely stunning in the lead, bringing effortless allure, quiet curiosity, and sharp emotional vulnerability to her character. Her commanding screen presence anchors the entire film, making her descent into obsession feel captivating even when the narrative begins to drag. However, the dull screenplay keeps the movie from reaching its full potential. The pacing feels sluggish in key stretches, relying on convenient exposition rather than building sharp psychological dread. While the writing stumbles and fails to deliver a tighter punch, Dakota's magnetic performance and the atmospheric...

A movie that bills itself as more than it turns out to be has got to be guilty of one of the most egregious sins in filmmaking, and director Michael Showalter’s screen adaptation of this best-selling novel by author Colleen Hoover qualifies on virtually all fronts. Although touted as a dark, erotic psychological thriller, this offering is none of those things. In fact, it barely passes as fare that one might find on the Lifetime cable TV network. When famed novelist Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) is severely injured in a car accident, her publisher (K.K. Moggie) looks to hire a ghostwriter to stand in for her to finish several titles in her current book series while (or if) she recovers. Crawford’s husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), recommends the job go to a struggling, little-known aspiring writer, Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), whom he inexplicably believes is best capable of...

Check out my full review @ https://www.manuelsbento.com/verity-2026-a-stellar-trio-cant-rescue-a-formulaic-thriller/ Rating: C VERITY has a trio of terrific performances, with Anne Hathaway operating a league above everyone else, but it never gives them a thriller worth their talent. The commitment to melodrama is admirable, yet the twists are so familiar that I felt like I was rewatching any other Colleen Hoover adaptation. The tension never really arrives, the trashy/sexy elements are lackluster, and scenes stall for padding before ending exactly where they were headed. Muted, predictable, and struggling to justify its runtime for what it delivers, this one didn't convince me.