{"id":636403,"date":"2026-10-04T20:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T20:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/636403\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T20:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T20:28:12","slug":"is-verity-worth-watching-anne-hathaways-thriller-opens-at-no-1-but-critics-and-audiences-are-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/636403\/","title":{"rendered":"Is ‘Verity’ worth watching? Anne Hathaway’s thriller opens at No. 1, but critics and audiences are split"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne Hathaway’s blockbuster year<\/a> is coming to an end.<\/p>\n

After The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the last of Hathaway’s five 2026 films is Verity<\/a>, the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling psychological thriller, which is in theaters now.<\/p>\n

Hathaway takes on the unsettling title role, a departure from some of her best-known characters, while Dakota Johnson plays a struggling writer drawn into Verity’s world. Josh Hartnett rounds out a cast that gives the bestselling adaptation plenty of star power.<\/p>\n

With a hugely popular novel as its source material and three big names leading the movie, Verity has plenty going for it on paper. But does it actually deliver? Here’s what film critics have said.<\/p>\n

What is ‘Verity’ about?<\/p>\n

\u23f1\ufe0f Runtime: 114 minutes<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfad Cast: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udf45 Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score: 34% critics, 70% audience<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udf9f\ufe0f Opening weekend: $32.7 million (No. 1)<\/p>\n

Hathaway stars as the titular character, Verity Crawford, a celebrated author who is unable to complete the remaining books in her successful series after a serious accident. Her husband, Jeremy (Hartnett), hires Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson), a struggling writer, to complete the job.<\/p>\n

Lowen moves into the couple’s home to sort through Verity’s work and comes across a disturbing manuscript that reveals dark details about her family. As she grows closer to Jeremy, Lowen is left trying to work out what \u2014 and who \u2014 she can believe. She starts to question whether Verity really is as incapacitated as she appears.<\/p>\n

What the critics liked<\/p>\n

Hathaway emerged as the brightest spot in several reviews, with critics appreciating her willingness to embrace Verity’s more outrageous side.<\/p>\n

Kristy Puchko of Mashable<\/a> called her “regal and ruthless” and praised the actor’s ability to switch between menace and charm. She described Hathaway as “keenly hilarious” when leaning into the movie’s campier moments.<\/p>\n

Slashfilm<\/a>‘s Nina Starner gave the movie 2 out of 10 but called Hathaway its “saving grace,” praising her timing and micro-expressions. “It’s truly a credit to her talent that she makes parts of this movie watchable,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

\"Dakota<\/p>\n

Dakota Johnson plays a ghostwriter hired to finish Hathaway’s character’s book series.<\/p>\n

(Amazon MGM Studios\/Youtube)<\/p>\n

IndieWire’<\/a>s David Ehrlich was more positive about the other leads. He called Hartnett “tremendous” and praised Johnson for capturing Lowen’s tug-of-war between empathy and desire.<\/p>\n

Deadline<\/a>‘s Pete Hammond also thought Johnson and Hathaway were “magnetic performers” and said a couple of jump scares got big reactions at his screening.<\/p>\n

What they didn’t like<\/p>\n

For a movie being sold as an erotic thriller, several critics thought Verity wasn’t erotic or thrilling enough.<\/p>\n

Kelsey Weekman of Yahoo<\/a> argued that the movie is “just fine” and lacks the campiness of Hoover’s “ridiculous” novel. She added, “It’s not bad enough to be good in a fun way, but it’s also not good enough to be authentically good.”<\/p>\n

Variety<\/a>‘s Guy Lodge called it a “flat-footed dud” and said director Michael Showalter struggles with the genre. He was particularly critical of the pacing, writing that the movie takes more than an hour “to reach so much as a low boil.”<\/p>\n

Polygon’<\/a>s Maria Loreto thought Showalter plays things too safe, arguing that Verity is “too controlled, too serviceable to commit to the bit.”<\/p>\n

Richard Lawson of the Hollywood Reporter<\/a> found Johnson less convincing as the movie progressed, saying she eventually seems “genuinely checked out.” Mashable’s Puchko similarly wrote that Johnson “comes off as bored” and felt she had little chemistry with either Hathaway or Hartnett.<\/p>\n

The Independent<\/a>‘s Clarisse Loughrey gave the movie two stars and compared it unfavorably with last year’s thriller The Housemaid. “If only it were sexy. Or camp. Or fun. Or even just silly,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

What audiences think<\/p>\n

“Verity” topped the box office in its opening weekend, earning an estimated $32.7 million in the U.S. and Canada and $62.5 million worldwide, according to Deadline<\/a>. That’s the second-best opening for a Hoover adaptation, behind “It Ends With Us,” which debuted with $50 million in 2024.<\/p>\n

Moviegoers were more mixed. Opening-night audiences gave “Verity” a C+ CinemaScore, the lowest of any Hoover adaptation so far. About 79% of the opening-weekend crowd was women. Its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is much warmer than its critics’ score, at 70%.<\/p>\n

So, is ‘Verity’ worth watching?<\/p>\n

“Verity” currently has a 34% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, based on more than 130 reviews, and a 70% audience score.<\/p>\n

If the combination of Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and a twisty Colleen Hoover story is already appealing, there’s enough in the reviews to suggest Verity could be an entertaining movie-night pick. However, those looking for a sexier, more gripping psychological thriller may be a tougher sell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anne Hathaway’s blockbuster year is coming to an end. After The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Christopher Nolan’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[60915,25444,15832,12479,146,107661,85,46,36397,287375,10794,187591,287374],"class_list":["post-636403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-colleen-hoover","tag-dakota-johnson","tag-entertainment","tag-film-critics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-josh-hartnett","tag-lowen-ashleigh","tag-psychological-thriller","tag-verity","tag-verity-crawford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}