{"id":3433,"date":"2026-11-14T22:19:36","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T22:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=3433"},"modified":"2026-11-14T22:34:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T22:34:54","slug":"verity-laughable-stinker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/11\/14\/verity-laughable-stinker\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cVerity\u201d Laughable Stinker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So where is Michael Douglas when you need him? (Probably writing more \u201cmemoirs\u201d:\u00a0One Helluva Ride 2<\/em>.) It certainly seems they don\u2019t make thrillers like they used to, or we remember the likes of\u00a0Basic Instinct<\/em>\u00a0(1992) and F<\/em>atal Attraction\u00a0<\/em>(1987) more fondly than they deserve\u2014both with Michael Douglas. Case in point: Recent release\u00a0Verity<\/em>, starring Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway, a thriller flirting with the category of So-Bad-It\u2019s-Good. If you like Dakota Johnson saying lines so slowly you think they need to decrease her Xanax prescription, you\u2019ll love it. Or if you like seeing Anne Hathaway reduced to a somewhat-maybe paralyzed accident victim, have at it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anne Hathaway deserves better<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Verity<\/em>, based on a best-selling Colleen Hoover novel (that one hopes is not as bad as the movie), is an eponymous title from the anti-heroine\u2019s loaded moniker of \u201cVerity Crawford,\u201d which signals this story is about \u201ctruth\u201d\u2014well, not really. Methinks it\u2019s more about writers making money by writing trashy, tawdry thrillers and trying to pass them off as somehow indicative of \u201ctruth.\u201d Anne Hathaway, fresh off her star turn in Christopher Nolan\u2019s\u00a0Odyssey<\/em>, plays\u00a0Verity, a thriller novelist who has suffered a mysterious \u201caccident\u201d (in thrillers it\u2019s a rule we put quotes around the suspicious events artfully crafted to fill any glaring plot holes).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler Alert: There\u2019s nothing to spoil here, but if you don\u2019t want to know too much about the movie, go do something else. And why hasn\u2019t there been a trashy film titled\u00a0Spoiler Alert<\/em>, huh? It\u2019s begging to be shot, with Sydney Sweeney as the \u201cSpoiler\u201d\u2014probably her Nanny nickname in role as au pair to rich, handsome-but-evil twins who convince her to recreate Sharon Stone’s interrogation-room oopsy every night to help them fall asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moral of the story: Don’t trust women writers with ice picks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And while we\u2019re at it, Verity<\/em> follows close on the heels of another stinker-thriller, The Housemaid<\/em>, starring another pair of usually reliable actresses, Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. There\u2019s already a Housemaid II<\/em>, if I\u2019m not mistaken. So bad it demands a sequel! Actually it\u2019s titled The Housemaid\u2019s Secret<\/em>, due in 2027. An \u201cerotic thriller\u201d no less. Let me guess: The \u201chousemaid\u201d finds a journal in which one of her bosses confesses to blood-curdling secrets . . . which she then hides among the cleaning-supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maybe Sydney Sweeney should open a coast-to-coast cleaning-lady biz?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Accidents play a major role in\u00a0Verity<\/em>, although what actually happens in said \u201caccident\u201d remains murky. Early on we learn that Verity\u2019s child Harper died in a canoeing accident, in the gorgeous lake that their gorgeous house in gorgeous Vermont borders. (As a veteran kayaker, I notice they seem to think drowning would be Activity #1 if your canoe were to flip. Maybe Verity is a veritable stone when it comes to a little swim.) So Harper died in the lake . . . maybe? Because then Verity wrote a \u201cpractice novel\u201d (oh yeah lots of writers do that) titled So Be It<\/em> (catchy? Uh uh) in which she detailed how much she hates her husband now and how the twins ruined her life and she had to drown little Harper because making peanut butter sandwiches gets to be a drag after a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s just practice! Right? So her movie husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), accidentally logs on to her laptop and reads the \u201cfictional murder-of-my-daughter\u201d manuscript. He sees red. How could she do such a thing? Am I married to a monster? But Jeremy is no Hamlet: Soon as he calms down he plots to murder Verity via an auto \u201caccident.\u201d Which he does, the accident at least, but Verity doesn\u2019t die (boohoo) and is merely kinda paralyzed, although that is not entirely clear. (Sometimes she seems to get around just fine, if you call walking with a limp \u201cjust fine.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter Dakota Johnson as \u201cLowen Ashleigh,\u201d who is also a writer. Of erotic thrillers no less. (She gives Basic Instinct<\/em>‘s “Catherine Trammell” a tacky run for her money.) And since Verity is paralyzed she can\u2019t finish her latest novel, so her publisher hires Lowen to ghost-write three novels. (Oh sure publishers do that all the time.) She gets to hang out in Verity\u2019s house and make-out with Jeremy. When Jeremy confesses the whole story about finding the ms. and getting his revenge on poor little Harper by crippling Verity \u201cLowen\u201d quickly jumps to his help and instructs him how best to murder Verity and make it look like, you guessed it, an accident. (This involves suffocating Verity and dumping her body in the lake. Wouldn\u2019t the coroner notice the suffocation evidence and how it did not appear to be a drowning? Did these people not watch Columbo<\/em>?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As performance-artist Maude Lebowski quips in The Big Lebowski<\/em>, upon showing the Dude the first scene of a porno starring Peter Stormare as Nihilist #1, who arrives at the apartment of two lingerie-clad young lovelies in his role as a Cable-TV repairman\/studmuffin, \u201cYou can guess the rest.\u201d To which the Dude replies, \u201cHe fixes the cable?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now there’s a movie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Verity<\/em>\u00a0ends with Lowen as a much-lauded, superhot commercial-trash novelist giving TV interviews and pregnant with Jeremy\u2019s baby and they\u2019re both getting away with murder. Or maybe the baby is all grown up and now enrolled at Princeton. (Then, on a visit home for Thanksgiving, both parents die in a suspicious \u201caccident\u201d involving an heirloom grandfather clock, a canoe, and moose antlers. The last scene includes said offspring smiling mysteriously while cashing the inheritance check.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Verity the trashy novelist gets punished by being murdered for writing an entire \u201cpractice ms.\u201d (What\u2019s a gal to do? Give up \u201cpractice\u201d writing?) By the love of her life no less! Now that\u2019s sweet. Me? I rather like Anne Hathaway and think she didn\u2019t deserve being suffocated and dumped in the lake. And how did little Harper die, anyway? Just your average\/ordinary canoeing accident? And why in the world would Dakota Johnson suddenly start barking murder commands? Now it is true that people in thrillers murder at the drop of a hat. And then later do voice-overs to explain it all. But still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The good old days<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Only in thrillers, baby. Only in thrillers. They ain\u2019t what they used to be. I get all nostalgic now, thinking of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction<\/em>, boiling Michael Douglas\u2019s bunny and asserting, \u201cI\u2019m not going to be ignored, Dan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They don\u2019t make thrillers like they used to, or we remember the likes of\u00a0Basic Instinct\u00a0(1992) and Fatal Attraction\u00a0(1987) more fondly than they deserve. Case in point: Recent release\u00a0Verity, starring Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway, a thriller flirting with the category of So-Bad-It\u2019s-Good. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[580,579,578,577,576,581,582,583],"tags":[584,85,585],"class_list":["post-3433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basic-instinct","category-fatal-attraction","category-the-big-lebowski","category-verity-film","category-colleen-hoover-novels","category-erotic-thrillers","category-satire","category-so-bad-its-good-movies","tag-verity","tag-fiction-writing","tag-so-bad-its-good-movies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t