Verity (2026 | USA | 114 minutes | Michael Showalter)

Because I am reasonably well-read and prone to moments of genuine pith, internet strangers on Goodreads and the bookish parts of Reddit used to assume (falsely) that I might make for a worthy online friend. At least three and a half friendships have collapsed because the other person has texted me a passage from Colleen Hoover’s Ugly Love, with the hope that I’ll take the bait and provide a dunk. I always demur. It isn’t because the prose is good (lord no), but because issuing insults on command is not something I find to be a worthy use of my time. Moreover, I have read lots of bad writing and simply cannot bring myself to care about more of it.

I don’t really have any negative feelings toward Colleen Hoover, who I believe props up the publishing industry and largely stays in a lane that is very much not “for me.” The only comment I’ll make on her writing prowess is that she’s better than every member of the Sarah Dessen defense squad. If judged only on points, I am pro-CoHo.

I was happy to maintain that status quo until I found myself with a free Tuesday evening and signed up to review Verity, a new movie adapted from a Hoover novel of the same name starring Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson. The film is, to use a clinical term, bonkers.

Hathaway stars as Verity Crawford, a bestselling author who goes on podcasts like Call Her Daddy and Hot Ones. She also has a string of successful novels and her publisher is aching for a new one. Verity is, however, in no condition to produce a coherent grocery list, let alone a work of popular fiction and her doting husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), tasks himself with finding a ghostwriter. He focuses on Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson). Lowen doesn’t have Verity’s profile or readership but she does look like Dakota Johnson. Lowen is hesitant to take the job for many reasons, not the least of which because she doesn’t think she can inhabit the level of darkness Verity does when crafting villainous antiheroines. Ultimately she relents because we wouldn’t have a movie otherwise the money is really good.

It isn’t enough to read Verity’s books and review her notes. If Lowen wants to replicate Verity’s method and produce work under her name without her fans being the wiser, she must live inside her cozy, remote New England home. To be Verity, Lowen must become Verity. Again, we wouldn’t have a movie if Lowen had any familiarity with Jung’s “Shadow Self” theory.

This film flits somewhere between the absurd and the ridiculous, while somehow remaining predictable. This movie, directed by Michael Showalter, is flawed (and often embarrassingly so) but has something going for it: Anne Hathaway is fully committed to the part. It was as though someone told her “We’re going to make The Shining for girlbosses” and she enthusiastically signed up for the ride.

Much, much respect to her. I hope she wins an Oscar.

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Verity opens in theaters everywhere today, October 2.