‘Verity’ Review: Anne Hathaway-Dakota Johnson thriller is more parody than erotic drama

Forget a dark, twisted, erotic drama — what’s hiding beneath ‘Verity’ is an unrealised parodyIn Colleen Hoover’s Verity, truth is slippery. In director Michael Showalter’s adaptation, now streaming, that nuance is replaced with sensationalism — flashy visuals, jump-scare edits and a nosy, The Shining meets Final Destination-type score.

As Jack Torrance would say, it’s all no work, no play. The film opens with struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) witnessing a bloody accident on her way to a meeting with a big publisher. Covered in blood, she accepts help from a stranger — Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) — who offers his white shirt. It’s meant to be unsettling, but leaves little impact.

The setup mirrors Hoover’s twisted dynamics, but the audio-visual treatment is at odds with the source material. Showalter reads between the lines for the audience, flattening personal ambiguity into collective uniformity.