Written by Sofia Mongillo Bermejo

WTF

was my immediate reaction when Verity ended. I wasn't confused so much as completely unsure who—or what—I was supposed to believe. Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) is a bestselling thriller novelist who has been left paralyzed after an accident. Adapted from Colleen Hoover's 2018 thriller novel of the same name, the film follows Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson), a lesser-known writer brought in to finish Verity's popular series. Her husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) invites Lowen to stay with the family at their isolated home, where she can work through Verity's notes and get inside the world she created. It sounds simple enough. It isn't.

The house

is where the unease starts. Beautiful, modern, and sprawling, it’s the kind of place anyone would feel lucky to call home. Instead, it feels sterile. The mid-century lake house sits in the middle of snowy land, with a massive frozen body of water just beyond it. The design is an architecture-lover’s dream, but in the right lighting, those spiky rooflines feel less like a design choice and more like a warning. The set design does a lot of the work here. The isolated setting, sharp architecture, and almost clinical interiors all add to the feeling that something isn't quite right. It's one of the movie's strongest elements, making the house feel dreamy and unsettling at the same time. Residing here is Jeremy, their son, the nurse, and Verity. And now Lowen. They all remain under the same roof, yet somehow feel entirely isolated from one another.

Verity

is the most interesting person in the movie, even when she isn't really there. Most of what we learn about her comes through writing, flashbacks, and the disturbing material Lowen finds while going through her work. Her notes give us access to a version of Verity that nobody else seems to know. Her writing is so ugly and so specific that it becomes difficult to separate the woman who wrote it from the woman everyone else describes. You start wondering whether her novels are simply fiction, whether they're confessions, or whether the distinction even matters anymore. Verity's mind becomes its own maze. The more Lowen reads, the less certain you become about what you're actually learning, and the movie understands that uncertainty is entertaining.

Trust

is basically the movie's entire game. Every relationship comes with a question mark attached to it. Just when you think you've figured out who is dangerous, something shifts, and suddenly you're looking at the same person differently. The movie keeps moving the victim around, never quite letting you settle on who deserves your sympathy or your suspicion. That back and forth is where Verity gets most of its adrenaline. There is a constant feeling that Lowen has discovered something she shouldn't have, and that the house itself might be closing in around her.

The seduction

is where the movie is most effective. It’s enticing, but not really sexy. It's not just Jeremy. It's the house, Verity's writing, the secrets, and the possibility that Lowen has been invited into a life she was never supposed to see. She starts there to finish a book, but slowly begins to inhabit Verity's world. Before long, she's getting closer to Jeremy and to the life Verity left behind. However, the attraction between Lowen and Jeremy is harder to buy. Isolated together, there’s a natural intimacy, but the movie wants their connection to feel deeper than convenience, and it never quite gets there. It tries to suggest that they are bonded by the dark things they've both experienced, as if they've found some strange, damaged connection that nobody else could understand. Truthfully, there’s not much chemistry there. There aren't enough moments between them to make the attraction feel inevitable.

Lowen

unfortunately never becomes as interesting as the story around her. Johnson brings a sense of normalcy to Lowen that works well for the movie, but the character still feels underdeveloped. Why she was chosen is never entirely clear. What is it about Lowen specifically that makes her the person who should finish Verity's series? We are told she's talented, but we don't get enough of her world outside of this house to understand what makes her special. She becomes more of a pair of eyes for the audience than a fully developed person with a story of her own. That's frustrating because the movie has created a character who should be incredibly interesting: a writer being invited into another writer's life, discovering that the work she is supposed to finish may reveal something much darker than anyone realizes. There's so much there, but Lowen just doesn't always feel like enough to carry it.

Where it slips

is in the people. Verity is fascinating because the movie allows her to remain unknowable, but Lowen and Jeremy don't get the same depth. Their motivations feel thin, their relationship never fully clicks, and that makes the central mystery less impactful than it could be. The atmosphere can only carry the story so far.

What lingers

is the uncertainty. Just when you think you've figured out who the victim is, something shifts and you're questioning everything again. The house only adds to that feeling, a polished, enormous, expensive reflection of Verity's mind. Everything is in its place. Nothing feels safe. Verity is entertaining in the way a good thriller can be entertaining. It keeps you suspicious, looking for the next piece of information, and reconsidering what you thought you knew. It’s enjoyable, but not necessarily memorable enough to demand a rewatch.

Maybe that's the point

because by the end, the question isn't really who was telling the truth anymore. It's why any of them were worth trusting in the first place. Verity spends the entire movie asking you to choose a victim, then takes that choice away. You're never quite sure whether you're watching someone trapped inside it, or someone who has decided to stay.