Polygon Review: Amazon Thriller Verity Falls Flat Despite Anne Hathaway

I love erotic thrillers. There is just something irresistible about watching characters throw their lives and their sanity away for the chance to sleep with the object of their desires. Consider Basic Instinct, in which detective Nick Curran falls into bed with Catherine Tramell, a crime novelist who might be describing the murder he investigates. It makes no sense, but everyone involved is so committed to their melodramatic vision that it works.

Verity has all the makings of a great erotic thriller. It has an intriguing premise based on a best-selling novel in which a ghostwriter becomes entangled with the husband of the woman she works for. It features two major stars, Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson, along with Josh Hartnett. It is directed by Michael Showalter, the filmmaker behind the successful book-to-screen romance The Idea of You.

On paper, this should be dark, sexy, and tortured. Hathaway and Johnson commit to the trashy fun, but Showalter plays it safe, and Verity ends up being just fine.

What is Verity about?

Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway, is one of the world’s most successful authors. The film establishes her credentials by showing her making the rounds on major talk shows, from CBS Mornings with Gayle King to Hot Ones with Sean Evans. In these interviews, she charmingly explains how she keeps her dark imagination apart from the idyllic life she leads with her husband Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett, and their kids. Verity has it all.

Then there is Lowen Ashleigh, played by Dakota Johnson in a smart riff on her Fifty Shades of Grey character. Lowen is a struggling genre writer whose book reading draws an audience of two. On her way to an important meeting, Lowen watches a driver run over a bike rider, splashing her face with blood. It is an abrupt twist that immediately raises the stakes.

A handsome stranger takes Lowen to a public bathroom to clean up. He turns away when she takes off her bloodstained shirt and lends her his own. It is charged and romantic despite the gruesomeness. When Lowen finally makes it to her meeting, her savior is waiting. He is Jeremy Crawford, and he is offering her millions to ghostwrite Verity’s next book from the family’s mansion in Vermont.

The tension Lowen felt in that bathroom returns, but with one caveat: Verity lives in that same home, paralyzed after a car accident.

It is a juicy premise, blending the Gothic ambiance of the remote home and the madwoman in the attic trope with the conventions of an erotic thriller. Viewers know Lowen and Jeremy will fall in love. It is just a matter of when. The film serves as a modern take on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, with Verity lingering in the background of Lowen and Jeremy’s dynamic as they grow closer.

Hathaway and Johnson are in on the joke

Erotic thrillers require a willingness to feel trashy and look ridiculous. Hathaway easily gets there. When Lowen finds a secret manuscript in Verity’s office showing Verity’s unvarnished self, viewers watch the true life story play out onscreen. In these scenes, Hathaway has fun playing the role in a different register than the woman we met in those polished interviews. In her manuscript, Verity documents the best moments in her life, like the start of her romance with Jeremy and her rise as an author. She also writes about the resentment she feels over becoming a mother, revealing that she ignores her infants’ cries to catch up on sleep once Jeremy leaves the house.

Johnson also commits to erotic thriller levels of absurdity, approaching the role with her deadpan delivery. Lowen has plenty of secrets, including a tortured past she refuses to discuss. She spends her days fantasizing about Jeremy as she reads through Verity’s secret manuscript, stuffing it under the couch cushions to keep it hidden. Lowen lives in the home of a paralyzed woman and flirts with her husband, but she feels no remorse and seems to enjoy it. The more she reads about Verity and uncovers her darkness, the more leeway Lowen feels to invade. A notable red flag for the character is that Lowen stirs her creamer into her coffee with her finger.

The star power of both women works in the movie’s favor, but also to its detriment. Hartnett is not nearly as strange or watchable as either of his co-stars. He feels flat with the material, saddled with cheesy lines plucked from the book that he fails to sell. To return to the Basic Instinct parallel, Catherine, played by Sharon Stone, is alluring every time she is onscreen. She might have killed her lover, but audiences understand why Nick, played by Michael Douglas, cannot stay away. Verity is Lowen’s story, and Jeremy is her Catherine, but there is little more to him than being a good dad. He is handsome, which viewers understand.

The flat register of Hartnett’s character creates a house-of-cards problem. With one weak card, the entire structure collapses. In a fantasy scene that became the trailer’s talking point, Lowen kisses Jeremy as he morphs into Verity. It is alluring and terrifying, establishing that Lowen wants Verity’s husband as well as Verity’s place as a whole, including her success and her life. She already lives in her house, writes in her voice, and eats dinner with her son. This leaves audiences wanting more complexity from Lowen and Verity, but the film delivers more Lowen and Jeremy instead.

The sex scenes also rely on Lowen and Verity’s dynamic. There is a bite mark on the headboard that Lowen notes when she first arrives at the house. She bites into it later, putting herself in Verity’s place in bed. Showalter struggles to capture the envy and lust present in the text. He is more comfortable with clear-cut romance, such as Lowen and Jeremy’s first kiss featuring a sweet frosting detail, and turns the camera away when things get uncomfortable. When Catherine and Nick writhe dramatically in bed in Basic Instinct, they look ridiculous, but the assured direction makes their passion come through. Showalter’s commitment to serviceability, keeping his stars gorgeous but never messy, holds the movie back.

The erotic thriller invites audiences to go along for a wild ride where they shrug off moments that would seem impossible in any other genre. It is an unspoken agreement made with the filmmaker to let absurdity slide for a good time and the chance to watch characters lose their minds over passion. However, Verity is too controlled and too serviceable to fully commit to the bit.

Verity releases in theaters on Oct. 2.

Source: Polygon