Richard Brody argues that Michael Showalter’s Verity wastes Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett on a thriller whose world cannot support its plot. Melodrama can make absurdity powerful; this film merely neglects cause, consequence, and ordinary human behavior.
The premise has plenty to work with:
- A struggling novelist is hired to complete an incapacitated best seller’s books
- She moves into the author’s isolated Vermont home
- Family tragedy, romantic attraction, and suspicions of violent crimes converge
- The story shifts from literary melodrama into a crime narrative
But the film strips away everything that could make those elements credible:
- Police and press barely respond to violence that should make news
- Secondary characters do not test or deepen the protagonists’ choices
- No books, ideals, institutions, or civic context orient the characters
- Relationships are reduced to plot-serving dialogue and generalities
Brody’s sharper point is about melodrama itself. Great examples place heightened emotion inside a richly observed social world; even a “good bad movie” can turn incoherence into pleasure through wild style and spontaneous symbolism.
Verity does neither. Its tasteful surfaces and aspirational seriousness suppress the very excess that might have saved it, leaving three capable actors performing in a void.