By Lynn Venhaus

Beware the unreliable narrator(s). Not giving any spoilers away, but “Verity” is turgid trash, and toys with truth, trust and too many twists to be a satisfying psychological thriller.

Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), hired to ghostwrite for wildly successful thriller novelist Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), uncovers what appears to be Verity’s autobiographical notes. She wrestles with the confessions about Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) and finds that separating fiction from reality is challenging.

Adapted by screenwriter Nick Antosca from simplistic novelist Colleen Hoover’s manipulative 2018 best-selling sensation, the movie has that same unconvincing plot formula with cliched characters and a left-field rushed conclusion. With a 1 hour, 58-minute run time, it is also slow and dull.

Most egregious is its hollow heroine Lowen, straining credibility because she is played by the blandest leading lady in Hollywood, Dakota Johnson (winner of not one, but two Golden Raspberry “Razzie” Awards for worst actress – “Madame Web” and “Fifty Shades of Grey”). 

A nepo baby – her parents are Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, she has made some strong indies (“Peanut Butter Falcon” and “Cha Cha Real Smooth” succeeded because she could be lowkey in them). But her deadpan delivery is hard to warm up to, particularly in a supposedly sizzling affair.

Johnson’s monotone indifference is annoying because Lowen is a serious writer (sure, let’s believe this), who is good enough to be published but not read or known. She’s waiting in the wings, eager for her big break, and she has a backstory that’s never fully addressed.

When Lowen is conveniently at an intimate birthday dinner with her employer’s husband, she admits to having “resting bored face.” That’s not a stretch, but most of the dialogue is. And the logic throughout is absurd.

Thrown together, because we must have a forbidden love angle while the catatonic wife, in a wheelchair and bed-ridden, creates an overly emotional detour between Lowen and the handsome man of the house – you see that coming from the ‘meet-grisly-cute.’

Oh, how bizarre. But blood, especially tawdry and titillating, is a recurring motif. So are bite marks. No vampires, however, were harmed in the making of this howl at the moon. We keep hearing about Verity’s vile villains she concocts in her lurid fiction – but in reality, her real-life is more disturbing. Or is it?

Hoover and company, desperately emulating “Gone Girl” with a touch of wannabe Daphne du Maurier, focuses on dark and sinister through characters’ ridiculous whispering and superficial seductiveness. 

Despite having Oscar winner Volker Bertelmann compose the score, the histrionic strings are so on-the-nose with ‘dun-dun-dun’ beats every time something is about to be revealed that it evokes laughter.

Unfortunately, this high-gloss schlock isn’t even a good way to have fun with pretty people being plastic, or a ‘hate-watch,’ with like-minded pals who enjoy snickering over faux raciness.

Appearing grounded and unfailingly polite, Hartnett does what he can as family man Jeremy Crawford in a thoroughly thankless role. Now that he’s had a career resurgence, with “Trap,” “Oppenheimer,” and “The Bear,” it’s nice to see him play a hunky and caring dad, no matter how much he’s secretly hiding. Because aren’t all male characters in Hoover’s novels not what they appear to be? Dun-dun-dun!

After the disingenuous “It Ends with Us” in 2024, in which Hoover did survivors of domestic abuse no favors by triggering, without any warning, and trivializing toxic relationships, I was furious.

So, loath to try another one of her film adaptations, I changed my mind just to see if I was missing something. Oh no. My first impressions are correct about terrible writing. 

Are studio’s this desperate for content? Apparently so, because she sells a ton of books and movie tickets. Her “Regretting You” and “Reminders of Him” were box office hits. Are these forgettable airport/beach reads?

Director Michael Showalter, who directed Anne Hathaway’s charming, breezy romantic comedy “The Idea of You,” Jessica Chastain to an Oscar in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” and the superb Oscar-nominated “The Big Sick,” is at the helm, so what happened? 

Did he convince himself he could pull a Paul Feig and hit gold with “A Simple Favor” like success? Perhaps the twisted thriller genre isn’t a good fit, unlike his wildly popular comedies and ‘women’ pictures. Not only are the actions of all involved mostly ludicrous, but the shock values are insincere, especially the ending.

Nevertheless, Hathaway acquits herself by taking the campy route. Looking all glamorous in slinky red outfits and wearing fiery red lipstick, she ramps up the sex appeal as America’s most alluring novelist of popular pulp fiction. Oh look how fun she is on talk shows – and eating chicken wings on “The Hot Ones”!

She lowers her voice a husky register when she’s doing voice-overs of her unnerving autobiography that she left on a USB flash drive hidden in a cigarette box in her desk. Oh, Kathleen Turner in “Body Heat” has nothing on Hathaway here – or Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity.”

Fully committed as this mystery woman, Hathaway chews the scenery with menace in ‘before’ scenes while looking wan and lifeless, incapacitated by a car accident in ‘after’ scenes, to give a viable contrast. Remember her 15-minute Oscar-winning role as impoverished Fantine in “Les Miserables”?

She may be over-exposed this year in “The Odyssey,” “The End of Oak Street,” and “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” but she’s doing her best Miranda Priestly here in the sole portrayal that works (even if it’s not a shred realistic).

Now, she is bankable. So that’s the one saving grace in the “Verity” sad misfire that has too many unresolved issues and too little to recommend.

“Verity” is a 2026 psychological thriller directed by Michael Showalter and starring Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett. It is Rated R for sexual content, some nudity, language, violence and bloody images, and the run time is 1 hour, 58-minutes. It opens in theatres Oct. 2. Lynn’s Grade: D.