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Verity, the psychological thriller based on Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel, opens in theaters Friday with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. The film concludes a record year for Hathaway, who has five major releases and a third child on the way.
Verity, the psychological thriller based on Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel, opens in theaters Friday with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett in the lead roles.
Verity Cast and Plot
The film was released by Amazon/MGM Studios. It is hard to know who to trust in the story. Anne Hathaway plays Verity, a wildly popular novelist who is unable to speak or move after a car accident. Her secret and disturbing autobiography speaks volumes.
Dakota Johnson plays Lowen, a struggling author hired to finish Verity's remaining novels. Lowen moves into Verity's home and finds herself fantasizing about her more successful counterpart's life and husband. Josh Hartnett plays that husband, who is caring and responsible but perhaps a bit quick to suggest that Lowen borrow one of Verity's dresses for their night out on the town. At some point, Lowen even starts to suspect that Verity might be faking her paralysis.
It is all quite heightened in the way that one might hope for in a sexy, psychological thriller. The actors often found themselves doing something the script did not call for: giggling. There would be some shots where Dakota and I would just have to stare at each other, Hathaway told The Associated Press. There is just something about knowing that you are supposed to be scary that makes you giggle.
That is part of the fun of going big for a pulpy, popcorn thriller, where Johnson gets to blow vape smoke in Hathaway's face. They all participate in a fantasy sequence in which Johnson starts out kissing Hartnett's character and ends with Hathaway on her lips. It just seemed really fun to play somebody who is deeply unwell, Johnson said. Verity is the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation to reach the big screen.
Hitchcock Influences and Film Success
After It Ends With Us, it is one of her more popular bestsellers. That film made over 350 million US dollars worldwide in theaters but became infamous for off-screen legal battles. On Verity, the drama stayed on the screen. For director Michael Showalter, it offered a chance to dip into a genre he has dreamed about since taking an Alfred Hitchcock film class in high school.
Rebecca was a major touchstone. Hitchcock and Brian De Palma were in his head when casting the movie too. It held extra significance that Johnson's grandmother, Tippi Hedren, was in The Birds and Marnie. Her mother, Melanie Griffith, starred in De Palma's very Hitchcockian Body Double.
Johnson deadpanned that she was not really thinking about her mother or grandmother in erotic thrillers at the time of filming. But after the fact she said she found it inspiring in a way. I guess, because it is something that has been in my family, it is like a sense of understanding and bravery, Johnson said. I guess I am inspired by my mother and grandmother that they can do, or did that.
A Super Group of Actors
And so could I. None of the three leads had ever worked together before. Showalter likened them to a super group. He learned from Hitchcock that movies like these are as much about the characters as they are about the actors. I have always been trying to play roles that are very different from each other and from myself, Hartnett said.
And I think as I have gotten older, people have allowed me more leeway to do that. Hathaway was a producer on Verity and came armed with big cinematic ideas, Showalter said. The two had worked together on the romantic drama The Idea of You. Hathaway was excited to help him make his Rebecca and to be in a role in which she was sitting and staring off in the distance for much of it.
She had just come off several physically demanding productions, so stillness seemed like the right choice. Verity's release ends an exhaustive streak of non-stop work for Hathaway that resulted in five major theatrical releases and press tours this year. They include Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey and The End of Oak Street. On top of that, she is soon going to give birth to her third child.
After a bit of a break, she plans to team up with Tom Cruise on a Days of Thunder sequel. But she is not patting herself on the back for any of it. Please let us not over praise the pampered actress, Hathaway said. There is a lot of pregnant women out there at home and in the workplace who did not get a manicure this morning.
Hathaway Returns to Theaters
I am very happy to do my job. I have so much support. Hathaway went on to speak about the thrill of watching audiences come back to movie theaters this year, something she said she and her co-stars took for granted at the beginning of their careers. The annual domestic box office is up around 19 per cent from last year.
Hathaway's four movies have made just over 2.5 billion US dollars worldwide. This year in particular felt like the first time for me, post pandemic, post the strikes, where the movies were so exciting and people came out in droves to see them again and again and again, she said.
It has just been exciting to have so many offerings in a year that feels so important to the motion picture industry and, not to sound too grandiose about it, but to American culture. Hartnett chimed in: But I am with The Onion saying that we are becoming overly reliant on Anne Hathaway in our economy. Hathaway told him not to worry. I am going to rest pretty soon, she said.
This is the last one. The film opens in theaters Friday. It is distributed by Amazon/MGM Studios. The cast features Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett.
CTVNews 
CTVToronto:'Verity' puts Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett in a steamy Colleen Hoover thriller 
CP24:'Verity' puts Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett in a steamy Colleen Hoover thrillerThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Entertainment Arts International Verity Anne Hathaway Dakota Johnson Colleen Hoover Michael Showalter Josh Hartnett
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