Verity - Review: Pulp Fiction

 

Colleen Hoover might just be the best thing to happen to the entertainment world since Stephanie Meyer. Formerly self-published, her books have rocketed into the stratosphere of the literary world, and in just three years she’s received four film adaptations of her works: “It Ends with Us,” “Regretting You,” and “Reminders of Him” have already grossed over half a billion dollars against budgets that total around $75 million. This latest adaptation promises to be the darkest and most seductive yet with her take on a sexy thriller with “Verity.”

The film follows Lowen Ashleigh, played by Dakota Johnson (“Fifty Shades of Grey,” “Materialists”), a small-time fiction writer living in New York City. She’s approached by a publishing company with the offer of a lifetime: to ghostwrite the latest novel by world famous bestselling thriller author Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “The Princess Diaries”). Lowen is hired by Verity’s husband Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett (“Penny Dreadful,” “Trap”), and invited to their lakeside home to stay and research Verity’s notes, which is where she learns that Verity has been paralyzed in a car accident, unable to speak or move for the foreseeable future. While staying at the house, Lowen believes something sinister might be going on, and begins to question if Verity herself is all that she appears to be.

It’s a tight concept, and one that has worked for decades in cinema. You get a cast of sexy actors together, let them brood it out and have banter, and then end things with a crescendo. However, screenwriter Nick Antosca (“Channel Zero,” “Brand New Cherry Flavor”) just doesn’t fill the movie with enough interesting goings on to keep anyone's attention for long. There are long stretches of the film where seemingly nothing significant happens and its, quite frankly, just boring. There definitely are major developments, but they all come in the last fifteen minutes, leaving no time to actually explore them. The plentiful sex scenes don’t help either as most just boil down to awkward moments of faux sexiness. Smeared cupcake on someone’s face certainly could be sexy, but not the way it’s presented here. The dialogue suffers as well, with a lot of odd bits that come across like a first draft or a teenager's idea of layered material.

The film’s director Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick,” “The Lovebirds”) isn’t helping much either. While his background in comedy is extensive, it simply doesn’t translate here. The moments that should be cheesier or campier are never leaned into in the way that they need, resulting in a film that feels flaccid for virtually anything it tries to do. And it certainly tries to do quite a bit, with twists right up until the last shot. It’s not a complete mess, as there are scenes of tension that work well, and the mystery is interesting enough to hold attention. But, like the script, large swaths of the film simply feel cold and boring.

Johnson certainly isn’t the most emotive actress in the world, but she’s turned in some fine work in other films before. However, her more prosaic personality is the exact opposite of what the film needs from its lead. She’s just cold and flat, failing to garner much attention for any length of the film. Hartnett fares much better, mostly due to him playing up his emotions in many later scenes. Hathaway steals the show, despite her considerably limited role. It speaks to her ability to captivate that she is the most interesting person on screen despite not being able to move or emote for large chunks of the film. Her flashback sequences and narration are the highlight, managing to inject enough energy and intrigue into the film to prevent the viewer from nodding off.

If a sexy thriller is what you want, then “Verity” technically delivers in that it is a film that calls itself a sexy thriller. But it also feels like every other film of that ilk, with a high dose of valium snuck in the middle. It’s competently made, and fans of this genre should have a fine enough time thanks to Hartnett and Hathaway doing their damndest to lift the project up. But there are also far too many better examples of this genre to feel satisfied with this kind of dime store pulp story. 1.5/5