The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s psychological thriller Verity has arrived, featuring a high-profile cast including Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson. While the movie follows the original plot closely, critics suggest it lacks the visceral, unsettling energy found in the bestselling novel.
From BookTok stardom to outselling Patterson and Grisham
The film arrives at the peak of Colleen Hoover's unprecedented literary dominance. Following her self-publishing beginnings in 2012, Hoover saw a massive surge in readership around 2020 driven by the BookTok community. As the report highlights, by 2022, she had become one of the top-selling novelists in the United States, reportedly surpassing the combined sales of industry giants James Patterson and John Grisham.
While Hoover is primarily known for contemporary romance, Verity represents a significant pivot into the psychological thriller genre. This move follows a trend of major literary properties being fast-tracked for screen adaptations, with Verity being the fourth Hoover novel to receive a cinematic treatment, following titles like It Ends with Us and Regretting You.
Lowen Ashleigh's descent into the Crawford family's Vermont secrets
Set in a lakeside home in Vermont, the story follows Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), a struggling writer from New York City who is hired to complete the Noble Virtues series for the injured Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway). The tension escalates when Lowen discovers a hidden manuscript on a flash drive, leading her to question whether Verity's depraved fictional characters are actually reflections of her real life .
The production features Josh Hartnett as Jeremy Crawford and Ismael Cruz Córdova as Lowen's publicist, Cory. as the story progresses, Lowen finds herself increasingly unable to distinguish between fact and fiction while navigating a growing attraction to Jeremy. According to the review, the film is buoyed by these strong lead performances, even if the atmosphere feels somewhat muted.
The decision to cut one child from the Crawford family
While the film remains largely faithful to the source material, it does introduce a notable deviation regarding the Crawford children. In Hoover's novel, the family includes three children, but the film streamlines this to just two: twins Harper and Crew. Brady Wagner portrays Crew, providing a performance described as endearing and sincere, which helps balance the heavy machinations of the adult characters.
This change appears to be a strategic attempt to simplify a plot that is already heavily layered with twists. Despite this streamlining, the film's refusal to lean into the more extreme elements of the book remains a point of contention for fans of the original text.
Why Antosca and Showalter opted for restraint over camp
Despite the involvement of screenwriter Nick Antosca and director Michael Showalter, the film has been criticized for playing it too safe. The source material is known for being "delightfully over-the-top," yet the cinematic version feels oddly restrained.. This raises several questions regarding the creative direction of the production :
- Why did the creative team choose to avoid the "creepy, campy, or sexy" elements that define the book's identity?
- Was the decision to reduce the number of Crawford children a narrative necessity or a broader attempt to sanitize the story?
- Did the production prioritize a mainstream appeal at the expense of the psychological horror elements that made the novel a sensation?
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