Anne Hathaway‘s Verity Crawford cannot move or speak after a car accident, and the entire story hinges on whether that is true.
In both the novel and the movie, struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) moves into the Crawford home after Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) hires her to finish the series Verity can no longer write.
Inside Verity’s office, Lowen finds what appears to be an autobiography filled with disturbing confessions. Michael Showalter, who directed Hathaway in The Idea of You, helms the film from a Nick Antosca script.
Does Verity Fake Her Condition in the Novel?
The novel’s setup is darker than the logline suggests. Verity’s accident came soon after the deaths of her twin daughters, and the manuscript describes her killing one of them, Harper. Lowen reads it while growing closer to Jeremy, and strange occurrences make her suspect Verity is faking.
In the novel, the answer is yes. Lowen catches Verity out of bed, and after reading the manuscript Jeremy confronts his wife, who admits she has been faking her condition. Jeremy then kills her.
The admission comes with a catch. Months later, Lowen finds a letter Verity left for Jeremy, which says the autobiography was a writing exercise about a villain and that she faked her condition because she feared him and planned to escape with their son, Crew.
Lowen destroys the letter, and the novel never confirms whether the manuscript or the letter tells the truth.
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How Does the Film Handle the Doubt?
The film delivers the autobiography through Hathaway’s voiceover, which lashes back to how Verity met Jeremy, became a writer and struggled with postpartum depression. That puts Verity’s own voice on screen while she stays silent in the present.
Early reviews suggest the doubt survives. Screen Daily writes that Hathaway’s performance, even while immobilized, leaves room for the idea that Verity has crafted her best twist yet. The Akron Beacon Journal says Showalter deliberately leaves more questions open than he answers.
Reviews are mixed on how well that works. Variety is harsher, calling it a listless adaptation that spells out its ambiguities at every turn and takes more than an hour to reach a low boil.
The two readings change what Lowen has done. If the letter is true, she helped end the life of a woman trying to protect herself and her son. If the manuscript is true, she exposed a killer and then destroyed the one document that argued otherwise.
Hoover self-published the novel in 2018, and the argument between Team Letter and Team Manuscript has divided readers ever since.
Verity opens in theaters October 2, so both camps can start picking sides again.
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