'Verity': Not enough trashy fun

     

  

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.

A thriller trapped by silliness

 

 Director M. Night Shyamalan's Trap isn't a typical whodunit. The movie makes it clear from the start that a cunning serial killer lurks behind the good-guy surface of a Philadelphia father who earns his living as a fireman.

  Shyamalan casts Josh Hartnett as Cooper, a killer whose evil inclinations are never much in doubt. The suspense, such as it is, derives from a different question: Can the killer escape law enforcement and continue leading his carefully compartmentalized double life? 

  The trailer reveals the movie's main plot contrivance. Shyamalan's screenplay places Cooper at a concert in a Philadelphia arena. Teen idol Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) headlines the show. Cooper is treating his teenage daughter (Ariel Donoghue) to floor seats.

     You'll have to wait until the third act to learn how the police determined that The Butcher (aka Cooper) would attend the concert. Meanwhile, you can wonder about the judgment of cops who set a massive trap involving an arena full of screaming kids.

    Shyamalan takes a generous approach to the concert footage, giving his daughter Saleka a chance to perform several numbers. She does the singing in footage that looks convincing enough.

    Once Cooper realizes the police know that The Butcher is within their grasp, he spends most of his time trying to find an escape route from an arena that’s teeming with police officers who’ve sealed every exit.

    How will the police even know if they encounter the killer? Conveniently, The Butcher has an animal tattoo that will distinguish him from the other 2,999 men who have brought their kids to the concert. All men will be checked at the exits.

     Hayley Mills plays Dr. Grant, the genius profiler who has concocted this trap for Cooper, providing a serviceable premise for a thriller that encourages us to consider how a packed 20,000-seat arena can be secured.

     The movie depends on Harnett's performance as a genial guy who no one -- other than the audience -- suspects of being a vicious killer. Hartnett plays against his wholesome looks, offering flashes of weird behavior and murderous impulses even as he tries to be a loving father. He’s part family man, part maniac with mama issues.

      The screenplay eventually contrives to bring Cooper's wife (Alison Pill) into the proceedings, but as it unfolds, the story becomes increasingly ridiculous, even campy. It's difficult to say more without spoilers, but it's possible that Shyamalan is goofing on a well-worn genre. Maybe not.

       Whatever the case, the third act pushes credibility to absurd extremes while giving Shyamalan an opportunity to try to stick one of his twist-heavy landings. 

       All I'll say is, "Cue the eye rolls, please." 

          

The wild journey of a Japanese woman

Zany, ridiculous, tragic, ever so slightly uplifting. Each of those adjectives could describe Oh Lucy! a film about a Japanese woman whose life has slipped into an anonymous rut. Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima) works in a nondescript office. She’s in her 40s and her life is going nowhere. Enter Setsuko's niece (Shiori Kutsuna), who says she must sell the remaining portion of an English course in which she's enrolled. Kutsuna's Mika needs the money and her isolated aunt might benefit from some social contact. It doesn't take long for Mika to take off for America with the English teacher (Josh Hartnett). Should Setsuko have known she was being played? Of course. The teacher -- known as John -- works in a spare room at a massage parlor/brothel, resorting to methods so weird they would have tipped off all but the most gullible of students. John insists that Setsuko wear a curly blonde wig, gives her a western name (Lucy) and punctuates routine English phrases with hi-fives and hugs. Another student (Yoji Yakusho) has been given an equally improbable name. He's Tom. Setsuko isn't entirely a dupe; she senses that there might be something exciting in this bizarre English class. Deprived of physical contact, she also likes the hugs. As ridiculous as it is, the blonde wig alerts her to a neglected side of herself and she decides to go with it despite warnings. Mika's mother (Kaho Minami) already had cautioned that helping the young woman would lead to no good. After being duped, Setsuko takes off for the US in search of Mika -- first in Los Angeles and then in San Diego. She’s not happy that Mika’s mother joins her on the trip. In LA, the sisters locate Hartnett's character who says Mika has left him. He joins the search. That sounds like a ton of plot, but Oh Lucy!, derived from a short film the director previously made, is a slender movie that offers plenty of comic pleasure before writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi pulls off an abrupt shift in tone and the movie puts comedy in its rearview mirror. Within a small frame, Hirayanagi manages to say something about the consequences of desperation and the enmity that can develop between sisters. Led by a Terajima -- who wisely keeps Setsuko's motivations vague -- an able cast creates a genre-defying movie that takes us deep into the kind of life that normally would go unseen.