When world-famous author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) is incapacitated by a car accident, her husband and publishers decide to keep the incident a secret and hire the unknown author Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) to complete her book series.

Initially, Lowen baulks at the idea of writing someone else’s novels, but the pleas from her husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), persuade her otherwise. Along with the vast sums of money, of course. But when she arrives at the home of the Crawfords, two factors cause her to question everything. Firstly, Jeremy has massively understated Verity’s condition; Lowen will not be assisting her to write, she will be writing everything from notes. Secondly, Lowen finds a hidden diary that Verity has kept that suggests her actions towards her family may have been as evil as the characters in her thriller novels. Who can be trusted and how can Lowen negotiate her predicament?

Verity is an adaptation of a novel by Colleen Hoover, who is currently Hollywood’s go-to author for film adaptations. This is her fourth book translated to film in the last two years, although it is the first that I have seen. At one point, Lowen declares that she has never read a novel by Verity Crawford because she does not read books that you can buy at an airport. A neat meta joke given that seems to be Hoover’s talent.

The thrust of the film brings to mind the psycho-sexual thrillers of the 1990s. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Single White Female come to mind, something that has recently made a comeback with The Housemaid, another film based on a popular novel. The film presents versions of the truth from unreliable characters and sources. How the protagonist and the audience choose to interpret that information and make decisions is where all the fun lies. The problem is that none of the final twists and turns warrant anything more than a shrug of the shoulders and perhaps an exhaled, “Is that it?” A disappointment given the performances and actors on show.

Dakota Johnson plays detached extraordinarily well. Lowen is a perfect fit for her. She recently suffered the bereavement of her mother, whom she nursed in her final days at her apartment. When she witnesses a gruesome car accident, all she can think about is whether she will be late to her meeting. So it makes sense that she seems to be merely calculating the right course of action for her throughout.

Anne Hathaway steals the film, something that is a common event in 2026, it seems. We see her driven author in interview snippets and flashbacks whilst she appears prone for the majority of the film. Her character is unknowable, and that is rather the point.

Josh Hartnett, on the other hand, goes even bigger on the “best dad ever” character that he presented in Trap. But can he ever be trusted?

All of that makes the denouement feel like a huge fumble rather than the bombshell it should have been. Verity has all the ingredients of a juicy psycho-sexual thriller, and the cast are more than capable of selling them. Unfortunately, the twists ultimately aren’t clever enough to make the journey feel worthwhile.