Verity

Based on Colleen Hoover’s titular novel, Verity is the sort of soapy erotic thriller one may have found plastered on billboards in the early 90s. Though an intriguing mystery with a hefty dose of psychosexual drama, the film is weighed down by dated tropes.

Dakota Johnson plays Lowen, a floundering writer giving book readings to a sea of empty chairs, save for the two attendees scrolling their phones (and an ostensible fan who quickly absconds). After a chance meeting with suave, suited older man Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) – at which point the film feels disturbingly reminiscent of Fifty Shades of Grey – she’s hired to collaborate with his wife, the esteemed author Verity Crawford (a sadly underutilised Anne Hathaway). Once an it-girl novelist who appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast and Hot Ones, Verity has been living as a recluse over the past year following a car accident. Lowen is summoned to the couple’s remote lake house to thumb through the pages of Verity’s notes and help her complete her next book.

The picture explores the extent to which an author may feel the need to reach into the darkest depths of their psyche for inspiration, and how far they are willing to descend to create great art. There are twists aplenty, with Lowen unravelling the circumstances of Verity’s isolation. All the while, Johnson appears to be channelling her Anastasia Steele, all furtive glances and restrained desire. Though a familiar performance, it mostly works for her elusive protagonist. Having made a mainstream comeback in Oppenheimer in 2023, the return of 2000s mainstay Josh Hartnett is, well, heartening after he all but disappeared from the big screen. But did his return to top billing have to be in something so silly?

While the feature does deliver on the intrigue and offers provocative commentary on what it means to be a woman who is shackled by maintaining “the perfect life” (as Lowen puts it), there’s little meaningful payoff. The twists are convoluted; the eroticism is dated and cliched.

There’s a good story in there somewhere, but Verity is ultimately a missed opportunity to say something about traversing the murky waters between fact and fiction. For a movie about the authenticity of an author’s voice, it lacks a true voice of its own.

Antonia Georgiou

Verity is released nationwide on 2^nd October 2026.

Watch the trailer for Verity here: