I would be lying if I said Michael Showalter’s cinematic adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s obscenely popular BookTok psychosexual thriller, Verity, wasn’t immensely entertaining. It was nothing short of a blast to watch with a packed audience, including my resident Colleen Hoover expert (i.e., my wife). But does that mean Verity is actually, you know, good?

Well, much like the nebulous truth at the center of the story, the answer is a little bit yes and a little bit no. Verity is a surreal assembly of insanely talented people who come together and give 1,000% of their creative selves to a story that can generously be described as atonal and, more realistically, as outright detrimental.

TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “VERITY”

5. The Title Card

This is a peculiar thing with which to begin my discussion of the film, and I recognize that, but I was a big fan of the opening credits and the title card used to display the film’s name up top. Volker Bertelmann’s musical score is appropriately malicious and over-the-top, while Showalter and his DP, Jim Frohna, have a blast shooting what can only be described as a Midsommar-chic lake house as though it were a classical Gothic manor. Meanwhile, the font choice and animation style of the title reveal feel heavily indebted to Alfred Hitchcock and Saul Bass.

All of which is to say that I liked this tremendously. It establishes the film’s tonal palette in a way that the first actual scene completely fails to do. This stark contrast between the film’s form—the craft, the artistic execution of the performers, and so on—and its content, meaning the text itself, persists throughout the entire runtime, and it is effectively summarized in these opening moments.

4. The Friction

That is certainly not to say that this contrast is without its joys, though. Watching Verity feels a little like watching an accomplished concert pianist be asked to play “Chopsticks.” Instead of turning up their nose at the request, however, the pianist tackles the low-bar challenge head-on and pours their heart and soul into the rendition.

All of which is to say that calling the writing amateurish would be too kind. And yet, everyone from Showalter to the main cast—Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett—treats it like A-plus material. More often than not, their commitment elevates the material in absolutely insane ways. There is an entire section around the middle of the film in which Hathaway acts out passages from a book being read by Johnson’s character, with Hathaway’s dialogue literally scrolling across the screen. On paper, it is atrocious. Through Hathaway’s scenery-chewing performance, however, it absolutely soars.

There are some bonkers line readings in this thing, but I’ll keep it brief and simply shout out my absolute favorite: Dakota Johnson’s delivery of “You deserve to rot in your robot bed, you Machiavellian cunt” will never leave my mind. I will be getting it tattooed on my body as soon as humanly possible.

3. Despite its Excessive Length, There’s No End in Sight

Verity is nearly two hours long—which feels kind of shaggy for what is ostensibly a pulpy thriller—and somehow feels even longer. The story drags its feet the entire way through and then has the chutzpah not to provide an actual ending.

This is especially odd given that the film is, you know, a mystery—a structure whose entire appeal is essentially predicated on having a conclusion. Verity, in keeping with Hoover’s novel, as I have been informed by my resident expert, opts to forgo such a conclusion. Instead, it deliberately leaves things open-ended in a way that makes the entire experience feel like an exercise in futility.

Numerous dangling threads and story elements populate the film’s plot, and I simply assumed they would be resolved or add up to something by the time the credits rolled. Instead, the story weakly refuses to take any definitive stance and then has the gall to send audiences out of the theater with a faux Hot Ones interview instead of a fucking ending.

2. Showalter’s Direction

Michael Showalter is such a strange dude, and I kind of love him? Known best to me as one of the creative forces behind the various Wet Hot American Summer entries over the years, he has become an acclaimed director more recently thanks to comedic-leaning films like They Came Together, The Big Sick, and even The Idea of You. Seeing that he was behind Verity was initially a bit surprising, but what shocked me even more was how present and on display his creative instincts were throughout the film. This is very much not a “just take the check” situation for him; you can feel him actively investing himself in every element of the film’s construction.

This is all the more surprising by comparison, as the glut of Colleen Hoover books adapted for the screen over the last few years—It Ends with Us, Regretting You, and Reminders of Him—have played things as safely and banally as possible. These films have sought to stage the events of the books in the limpest ways imaginable without ever rocking the boat. Their only goal seems to be delivering the novel’s contents to fans through an inoffensive vessel completely devoid of artistic intention.

Showalter could have easily done the same, but he sticks to his guns, and the film is far more enjoyable for it. He makes actual decisions! There is genuine, motivated craft and camerawork in this thing! It’s a real movie! I’m sure that sounds derogatory, and yes, the bar is undoubtedly low here, but I was genuinely delighted by many of the choices he made.

1. The Leads

The real feature of this whole production though is watching three of the greatest performers working today tear through this paper-thin facsimile of a narrative as if they are starring in a bona fide awards contender. As the titular character, Hathaway gets to really ham things up in a great way and lean all the way into her uber-charismatic strengths in fascinating ways.

Josh Hartnett’s performance here is equally mesmerizing, as he utilizes his still-boyish charms to maximum effects. The only way to really adequately describe what he does here is that it is a performance that starts out as Keanu Reeves-esque and sees Hartnett gradually cranking up the Jack Nicholson influence, and it rules. And then Dakota Johnson’s performance might be the most staggering of the whole bunch. She essentially gets stuck reacting to a whole host of things throughout most of the movie, but the degree to which she sells it is absurd. I love Johnson (if you haven’t seen her in Suspiria, you haven’t fucking seen what she’s capable of) and it was so wonderful to see her come alive so vividly within these trashy trappings.

RGM GRADE

Is Verity good? Yes. It is an absolute best-case-scenario adaptation of an incredibly popular book whose shambling, rudderless story is its greatest weakness. There is no version of this material that could have produced a better film than the one we received. Thanks to the collective effort and passion of the cast and crew, I feel that Verity more than deserves a positive grade overall.

It gave me a great time at the movies and delivered several moments that will remain lodged in my mind for years to come. Plus, I got this sweet new tattoo that reads, “You deserve to rot in your robot bed, you Machiavellian c*nt,” so that makes the entire experience more than worth the price of admission.

Will Jones