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This movie has not had great reviews. The consensus seems to be that, while the performances are good, it is all largely uneventful as it winds its way to an underwhelming denouement. Lots of critics have compared it The Housemaid suggesting it falls very short of what director Paul Feig gave us in that film. 

Now, I loved The Housemaid but that is not a movie you want to unfavourably measured against. It was tremendous fun but it was so incredibly trashy that a poor man’s version is going to be something left very wanting indeed.

Here’s my take. Sure this is very reminiscent of the Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Siegfried potboiler. Once again a young woman, with perhaps a bit of a dark side who is finding her way after a time of tragedy, is invited into the expensive home of a family with a seemingly charming husband, a single child and mother who we are lead to believe might flip out at some point despite external appearances. There are also secrets revealed by something the wife wrote down some time previously that play out in flashback. The ending is admittedly a bit rushed but as with its apparent filmic forbear, I had a whale of a time. 

The tone of Verity is not quite the same. The Housemaid definitely had its tongue firmly in its cheek but this one purports to be a little more serious. It certainly isn’t knowing in the same way. The posh residence this one is set in is I believe supposed to be a masterwork of interior design but by my mind is a bit tacky and I’m not sure that isn’t a metaphor for the whole movie. It is intended to all be a bit of a ride though and I was totally happy to be taken along with it. This one is a lot more tense as well. The set up is that Dakota Johnson’s struggling writer is commissioned by Josh Hartnett to finish the book of his famous novelist wife after she is left catatonic by a car accident. Anne Hathaway plays the inflicted woman and the plot plays with the idea that she might not be as incapacitated as she appears and is gaslighting Johnson’s Lowen by turning up at windows and the like, or maybe the younger woman is actually just going crazy. With this there are moments that focus on the motionless woman of the title where your heart is in your mouth waiting for a slow head turn or a wink or something to reveal the possibly hidden truth; the potential reality that name of the film simultaneously refers to. 

I do agree with the critics with regard to the performances. The central trio of actors are all great. Dakota Johnson has her usual reserve but it works for the part. There is a line that some of the reviews have picked up on where she says that she doesn’t read books she can buy in an airport which they say is ironic as Colleen’s source novel is one such example of corny pulp fiction. I was more drawn to the point at which Johnson says she has resting bored face though which seemed much more meta as she does have that reputation as an actor. She is, I have to say much better in both Splitsville from earlier this year and in Taylor Swift’s new video, but she makes a very compelling lead here too. Of course 2026’s busiest actor is Hathaway, with this being her fifth release since April, and she totally owns this one. Her performance in this is just delicious. I’d clearly rank it behind The Odyssey and Mother Mary in any Oscar race but she is evidently relishing what she gets to do here and I am in for it just as much. Johnson is the writer in need of a gig this time and Hathaway is the Miranda Priestly figure, in command and apparently unafraid to behave as she wants in those melodramatic flashback scenes and this is better than any Devil Wears Prada sequel they care to throw at us. All in all, with The End of Oak Street completing the quintet, Anne Hathaway has had a great year. 

It is my understanding that Verity was a bit of a departure for Colleen Hoover who normally writes troubled love stories. Despite what the movie press may say I think this is the best of the films adapted from her work though. I will confess that Reminders of Him made me cry but I was at the end of a long haul flight so that may not have just been my response under different circumstances, and this has a greater surety than It Ends With Us. This is also interesting in what it says about the minds of writers and might be tinged with some autobiographical considerations in its original form which I feel the movie leans into. Certainly the cover of Verity Crawford’s books shown in the film look a lot like the cover of Hoover’s own source novel so what are they suggesting here.

What ever it is saying though, whatever it is trying to achieve and however it may compare to other recent movies, I really enjoyed Verity. It definitely creates intrigue, it has some surprises (especially one near the start which seems to takes hit at Woody Allen’s famous Manhattan monologue) and it delivers on it’s promises, albeit in a slightly underdeveloped way at the end. It even has something for the Fifty Shades fans but I’m glad Dakota Johnson continues to put this behind her. It is not the best work of any those involved (I wonder if Johnson will get her Nolan movie at some point – probably not) but it is a great night at the movies. Enjoy it for what it is and do not worry about what it’s not. 

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