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There’s nothing wrong with good, trashy fun. That’s what I hoped to get from Verity, the fourth big-screen adaptation of a novel by the widely read Colleen Hoover. After some initial optimism, my hopes steadily dissolved. A cast composed of Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett seemed ready to deliver a story that makes room for sexual attraction, deception and blurred identity lines. In her fifth movie this year, Hathaway portrays Verity Crawford, a popular author whose stories are told from the villain’s point of view. Johnson plays a struggling novelist who’s chosen to finish one of Verity’s books after an automobile accident leaves the author unable to walk or talk. Hartnett plays Verity’s husband, Jeremy, a charming enough fellow who develops a relationship with Johnson’s Lowen after she moves into the couple’s sleek Vermont home. Research, you know. We also meet Crew (Brady Wagner), the eight-year-old surviving Crawford twin. His sister Harper (Sienna Kulovitz) drowned in a canoeing accident. Cue the guilt and add a secret autobiography Verity had been writing. Director Michael Showalter offers glossy images and tries to add layers of suspense. Immobile through much of the movie, Hathaway still manages to register. So does Hartnett, but Johnson’s performance tends toward dullness. Oh well, the initial glamor loses its luster, and a plethora of melodramatic third-act plot twists wreck what's left of the movie's waning plausibility. As for samples of Verity’s writing ... oh, hell, let's just move on.
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