Based on the book by Colleen Hoover
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Brady Wagner
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Director:Â Michael Showalter
In Irish Cinemas: 2nd October 2026
Colleen Hoover’s Verity arrives on screen with a title that feels almost like a warning. The name belongs to its central character, but it also hints at the film’s obsession with truth, lies and the uncertainty between them.
Dakota Johnson stars as Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling novelist whose career takes an unexpected turn when she is offered the chance to finish a hugely successful book series. The job comes from Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), the celebrated author behind a bestselling collection centred on a female killer. After a devastating accident leaves Verity paralysed, Lowen travels to the Crawford family’s imposing home to begin the assignment.
There she meets Verity’s husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), and quickly becomes entangled in the troubled atmosphere surrounding the family. While supposedly working on the unfinished manuscript, Lowen discovers a collection of Verity’s private writings. They contain disturbing revelations about the family and appear to offer an uncensored account of events that led to its current state.
The film leans heavily into psychological suspense, using ominous narration, sinister revelations and repeated suggestions that nothing is quite what it seems. Hathaway clearly embraces the opportunity to play a character whose polished exterior conceals something darker, while the screenplay, written by Nick Antosca, continually pushes the story towards another supposed revelation.
Unfortunately, the twists rarely feel convincing enough to sustain the mystery. The dialogue can be awkward, the characters often behave in ways that strain credibility, and some of the film’s treatment of disability and the deaths of children feels particularly insensitive. What begins as an intriguing psychological puzzle eventually becomes an elaborate tangle of melodrama and implausibility, leaving the film caught somewhere between a thriller and an overstuffed domestic mystery.
Overall:Â 6 /10
Movie Reviewer
