Verity Movie: Cast, Ending Explained, Reviews and Where to Watch
Verity is the rare Colleen Hoover adaptation that critics and fans can't agree on even in principle. Some reviewers wanted it trashier, others wanted it to make more sense, and the book's huge readership mostly just wanted to see Anne Hathaway play Verity Crawford. On that last point, nobody is disappointed.
The film opened at No. 1 in North America on 2 October, ahead of Tom Cruise's Digger, and passed its $40 million budget worldwide within its first weekend.
Verity cast: who plays who
Hathaway plays the bestselling author left unresponsive after a car crash. Johnson is Lowen Ashleigh, the struggling writer hired to finish Verity's book series, and Hartnett is Jeremy, Verity's husband. Ismael Cruz Córdova plays Lowen's agent Corey, Brady Wagner is the Crawfords' son Crew, and Irina Dvorovenko is Verity's nurse. Podcasters Alex Cooper and Sean Evans turn up as themselves.
Hathaway is also a producer on the film, and so is Colleen Hoover herself.
What happens in Verity (no spoilers)
Lowen Ashleigh is broke and close to giving up on writing when she gets an offer she can't refuse: finish the last books in Verity Crawford's bestselling series, because Verity can't. Lowen moves into the Crawfords' lakeside house in Vermont to go through Verity's notes, and finds something else among them, an unpublished autobiography in which Verity confesses to things far darker than anything in her novels. At the same time, Lowen is falling for Jeremy, the grieving husband who hired her.
The tension comes from one question the film keeps turning over: whose version of events can you believe? Verity's manuscript, Jeremy's grief and Lowen's own motives are all suspect, and the film plays the three against each other until the very end.
Verity ending explained
⚠ The ending, and the alternate ending that was cutShow spoilers
Verity's manuscript claims that she deliberately capsized a canoe to drown her children, to get Jeremy's devotion back for herself. Lowen confronts Verity, then persuades Jeremy to kill her. He suffocates her, and the two of them stage it to look like an accidental drowning.
Seven months later, Lowen finds a letter from Verity that turns everything over. In it, Verity says the autobiography was only a writing exercise, that the crash was a real accident, and that Jeremy had rigged her car to kill her, so she pretended to be unresponsive to stay alive. Lowen decides not to tell Jeremy and stays with him, never knowing which account was true. That ambiguity is the point: the film, like the book, refuses to settle it.
A different ending was shot. In it, a shot of Lowen in a car hinted that she was the real manipulator, followed by Verity opening her eyes underwater, suggesting she survived. Test audiences rejected it, and it was cut.
How the movie compares with Colleen Hoover's book
The film keeps the book's spine, including the letter that makes the ending so divisive among readers, and with Hoover producing, the big beats stay where fans expect them. The real question for book readers is tone. Hoover's novel is pulpy and gleefully nasty, and the most consistent complaint from critics is that the film is more careful than that. Collider's Carly Lane wrote that it "almost seems afraid to go too campy, creepy, or even overtly erotic".
The cut ending tells you which way the studio leaned. The version that tested badly was the one that pushed harder, making Lowen the villain and Verity the survivor. The released film stays closer to the book's ambiguity.
Verity reviews: why critics and audiences split
Those four numbers don't agree with each other, and that's the story of the reviews. Critics are mostly negative, the audience score is far kinder, and the CinemaScore says opening-night viewers came out lukewarm. Read together, they describe a film people enjoyed watching more than they enjoyed thinking about afterwards.
“Wickedly playful.”
The positive reviews mostly come back to Hathaway. Mashable's Kristy Puchko said she is "keenly hilarious, and she knows it", and Digital Spy called her performance a reminder of how she "can elevate even the weakest material". Awards Watch went further, calling it the best Hoover adaptation yet.
The negative ones mostly come back to everything around her. Several critics found Johnson and Hartnett flat together. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw argued the story "disintegrates" into implausibility, The Independent called it a less entertaining version of The Housemaid, and more than one review found the long final reveal a drag.
Verity box office
It opened with $32.6 million in North America, including $4.5 million from Thursday previews, enough to beat Digger and top the weekend. Add $30 million from international markets, and it reached $62.6 million worldwide by 4 October against a $40 million production budget. Whatever critics think, that's a healthy start for a mid-budget adult thriller, a kind of film studios have largely stopped making for cinemas.
Our verdict
Verity is best understood as a fan event built around one performance. If you've read the book, you'll want to see what Hathaway does with Verity, and every account says she's worth it. If you haven't, the reviews suggest a thriller that's more fun in the moment than it is convincing, and one that plays safer than its source.
The cut ending is the most revealing detail of the whole production. Faced with a choice between a bolder twist and the book's open question, the filmmakers chose the book. For Hoover's readers, that's probably the right call. For everyone else, it's the reason the film feels a little tamer than the story it's telling.
Where to watch Verity
Verity is in cinemas now. It opened in the US, Canada and India on 2 October, with Sony handling the release outside North America. We couldn't confirm a Pakistani cinema release date, so check local listings. Because it's an Amazon MGM Studios film, it's expected to stream on Prime Video after its theatrical run, but no streaming date has been announced yet.
Quick answers
Is Verity on Prime Video?
Not yet. It's in cinemas first. As an Amazon MGM Studios film it's expected on Prime Video afterwards, but no date has been announced.
Is the Verity movie faithful to the book?
Largely, yes. It keeps the book's main twist and its ambiguous final letter, and Colleen Hoover was a producer. Critics' main complaint is that it's tamer in tone than the novel.
Was there a different ending to Verity?
Yes. An alternate ending, hinting that Lowen was the real manipulator and that Verity survived, was filmed but cut after test screenings.
Is Verity suitable for teenagers?
It's an adult thriller, with sexual content and a story built around violence against children. It's rated 15A in Ireland; check your local rating.
How long is Verity?
1 hour and 57 minutes.
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