The Colleen Hoover adaptation starring Johnson, Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett opens October 2 with critics calling it trashy, addictive and hard to look away from.
Colleen Hoover's publishing empire gets its latest big-screen outing this Friday. "Verity," adapted from her 2018 novel of the same name, opens in theaters October 2 with Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway leading a cast that also includes Josh Hartnett.
The setup is pure book-club bait. Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling author hired to ghostwrite the remaining novels of bestselling writer Verity Crawford, played by Hathaway, after Verity is left in a vegetative state following an unspecified medical event. Lowen moves into the Crawford estate to comb through notes and finish the series, and finds herself drawn closer to Verity's husband Jeremy, played by Hartnett, whose first meeting with Lowen is anything but a typical rom-com moment.
Director Michael Showalter, better known for comedies, takes on the material here, and according to Hollywood in Toto's review, he plays it straight down the middle rather than leaning into full camp or grounding it in grim realism. The review, which awarded the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, called it "Potboiler 101" and compared the experience to binge-watching a streaming series, right down to expecting a next-episode prompt to pop up on screen.
That's not necessarily a complaint. The reviewer admitted the film "insults your intelligence" and that audiences likely won't mind, praising the chemistry between Johnson and Hartnett as the glue holding together a plot full of telegraphed twists. Hathaway's screen time is limited given her character's condition, but Hollywood in Toto noted the film uses flashback sequences to flesh out the Crawfords' marriage and set up a third-act gut punch.
Whether that punch lands seems to depend entirely on viewer tolerance for pulp. The review predicted "Verity" will split audiences down the middle, between those who accept the soapy premise and groan-worthy reveals and those who check out early. There's also a pointed line in the review contrasting Johnson's work here favorably against her much-maligned turn in "Madame Web," suggesting her low-key screen presence suits this kind of material better than a superhero spinoff ever did.
The film runs just under two hours and carries an R rating for sexual content, language and violence, so this isn't one for a family outing. It's also worth noting this is a theatrical release, not a Netflix drop, despite Hoover's biggest prior adaptations living on streaming. Hollywood in Toto's review pointedly flagged that distinction, noting there's no remote to reach for and no back button once you're sitting in a dark theater with a ticket already paid for.
Hoover's fan base has shown up in force for past adaptations, and "It Ends With Us" proved there's real box office appetite for her brand of domestic melodrama. Whether "Verity" repeats that performance depends on opening weekend numbers, which start rolling in from Friday.
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