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Verity

by George Wolf

The most interesting thing about Verity is what a stupefying mess it turns out to be. Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson aren’t just stars, but producers as well. And though Michael Showalter might seem a surprising choice to direct an erotic thriller, his resume includes some big wins (The Big Sick, Wet Hot American Summer).

Where did it all go wrong? Pretty much everywhere.

Based on Colleen Hoover’s best seller, the film follows struggling novelist Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson) as she is hired to finish a book series by world renowned writer Verity Crawford (Hathaway). Crawford is incapacitated after a car accident, so her husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) invites Lowen to stay in their Vermont mansion, pour over Verity’s notes and deliver three much-anticipated books.

But Lowen finds more than notes. She finds a flash drive holding a secret manuscript that appears to be an autobiography where Verity makes some earth-shattering confessions.

Cue the thunder claps and lightning strikes, and hold any trace of a winking nod to how ridiculous this all is. Hoover’s story (adapted by Nick Antosca) seems heavily borrowed from a couple more well-plotted novels, and Showalter’s humorless tone never leans into the pulpy aspects that might have made this a fun, guilty popcorn pleasure.

Sexy moments aren’t sexy. Jump scares aren’t scary. Witty banter isn’t witty, and the three very talented stars just seem confused. That’s a bad combo, one that allows for plenty of time for us to wonder about those breakdowns in internal logic.

But honestly, there isn’t much concern with any one thinking too much. An over-reliance on voiceover narration drains the shock value from big reveals, and ends up negating those seeds of doubt the film seems to think it is planting.

This type of Neo-noir blurring of truth and fiction has resulted in some twisty fun in the theaters over the last several years. But what might have been a self-aware ride on the order of A Simple Favor or The Woman in the Window barely rises to the level of Hathaway’s own curious dud Serenity.

Too much talent, not enough pulp. Sad to say, that’s Verity.

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A Good Enough Cry

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Reminders of Him

by Hope Madden

A couple of years back, director Vanessa Caswill leaned affectionately into cliché, cast well, and elevated Love at First Sight above its tired romcom streamer roots. Can she do the same with the Nicholas Sparks style tearjerker Reminders of Him?

She can. But here’s the more important part. Caswill isn’t trying to exit the sobby romance genre. She is trying to make a movie that will please the same people who loved A Walk to Remember, The Longest Ride, and of course, novelist Colleen Hoover’s last feature adaptation, It Ends with Us. She’s just also trying not to make utter crap.

Caswill succeeds to a degree on both counts, again by casting well and embracing cliché.

The effortlessly woebegone Maika Monroe is Kenna, who’s just returned to her small hometown after a 6-year stint in prison for involuntary manslaughter. All Kenna wants to do is rebuild her life and meet the daughter she gave birth to in prison.  Too bad that daughter lives with the parents of the Kenna’s boyfriend, who died in that crash that sent her to prison.

So, the stage is set for a work-ethic driven story of redemption. Which is, of course, just an excuse for the romance. Kenna falls for Ledger (Tyriq Withers), her late boyfriend Scotty’s childhood bestie who returned to the neighborhood five years ago to help raise Scotty’s daughter.

Monroe’s performances tend to be internal, so she wears Kenna’s misery more than performs it. There’s a naturalness to it that helps the often unrealistic dialog and plot choices feel more believable.

Caswill also does not pretend that poverty—which is what Kenna lives in as a felon who’s lucky to get a job bagging groceries—looks at all glamorous. And though she may make poverty look a lot safer than it is, she surrounds Kenna with some fun ensemble players and a bit of needed joy.

Withers is primarily there to be inarguably handsome, but he and Monroe do share enough chemistry to make the romance somewhat compelling. And though Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford suffer with woefully underwritten characters, both veterans have talent enough to enrich what the script lacked.

Does Reminders of Him do exactly what you expect it to do, scene after scene? It does. But it’s supposed to. It just does it a little better than it really had to.