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3 min readNew DelhiOct 2, 2026 01:06 PM IST
Verity movie review & rating: “I don’t read novels one can get at an airport,” declares Lowen (Dakota Johnson). Which is her way of saying that her books are “not popular”, but that they need not be. This is after she has taken up the offer to ghost-write for one very popular writer (Verity, played by Anne Hathaway) because, well, who doesn’t need money?
As you may have guessed by now, neither does much writing in this latest Colleen Hoover book to be made into a film. When Lowen does find herself behind a computer, she is mostly rubbing her face or stretching or sighing. She also fills up a room with handwritten notes, laid out across couches and carpet, as part of her “process”.
All this is a pretext to set up a story as unlikely as it gets and, within the first few minutes of which, the paths of Lowen and Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) have crossed at a traffic light where an accident has left passerby Lowen splashed with the victim’s blood. Jeremy, ever the chauvinist, escorts her into a public washroom, takes off his shirt, and offers it to her to change into.
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Blood, bodies and exchanged shirts… do we need more? Yes, for Lowen now moves into Verity and Jeremy’s very isolated, very woodsy house in snow-clad Vermont countryside to “get to know Verity” before her assignment.
No, Lowen does not bother to know details of Verity’s medical condition, beyond that she “can’t move or talk”. And yes, there is one well-dressed nurse throwing suspicious looks, but who disappears conveniently when the biting into bed headboards in throes of passion – a thing in this film – starts.
Hoover has filled many of those airport bookstores that Lowen scoffs at. This one ought to have stayed there, and never crossed the desks of Hathaway, Johnson or Hartnett.
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Verity movie cast: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett
Verity movie director: Michael Showalter
Verity movie rating: 1.5 stars
