Movie Review: Verity

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C

Thiller starts out well but loses its way.

In this film a writer who has had very little success gets the opportunity to write the next book in a popular series, when the original author is the victim of a car crash. She must live in the house of the famous author and her husband. Though the famous author is supposedly paralyzed, the new house guest believes that she is seeing the author move around watching her. It is then she begins to doubt whether anything is truly as it seems. 

Like many thrillers this movie does a great job setting the story up. We quickly grow to care about our main character and her desire to finally get some form of external validation. When she arrives at the house the story seems to get better. There is a real sense of mystery as to what is going on here and the scenes of the famous offer moving, when only our main character can see it are unnerving. 

However, as the story really gets underway, it falls apart. There is twist after twist but none of these twists are that good. There is no proper build up to most of them. Because of this we may not see them coming but that doesn't make them feel satisfying. It doesn't help that all of these twists have been done better elsewhere. In better films these same twists have come naturally out of the characters and story, making them very effective. Here the filmmakers just simply appear to be going through the motions with each major twist. This all leads up to an extremely unsatisfying ending.  

Yet even in its worst moments the performances from Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson do much to elevate this movie. They give their all here and it shows on screen completely. They are fully engaging and convincing even when the story is not. 

Despite a good start and strong performances, this film unfortunately falls far short of what it could have been.