A cyclist is killed right in front of Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) on a crowded Manhattan intersection to start of the film. Such inspires a “meet cute” between Lowen and her eventual fuck buddy, Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett). Such is hinted at when Lowen removes her blood-spattered blouse, accepting the very dress shirt Jeremy is wearing. Of course, all of this is unnecessary sensationalistic bullcrap as the two were destined to meet anyway, which, in turn, almost perfectly describes this failure of a film.
Lowen is a struggling writer. The titular Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) is not. Verity is among the best-selling authors in the world. She is married to Jeremy, and near catatonic following a recent car accident. Jeremy has come to NYC to solicit the talents of Lowen as a ghost author. Verity’s books are guaranteed to sell so long as any fair talent can piece together the prose among Verity’s pre-novel notes. To do so, Lowen will have to come live with the Crawfords for a period of time.
From the moment Lowen sets foot in this crown-shaped forest retreat, it’s pretty obvious to everybody but Lowen that she’s there to replace Verity. If you didn’t cotton on to such by noticing how much Dakota Johnson looks like Anne Hathaway, and how everybody acts around them, you’d probably get the idea by the time Jeremy and Lowen start having sex and especially when Lowen wears Verity’s sexy red dress to a public function.
And where is Verity? In a 
chair. Not physically damaged, but psychologically broken and rendered little more than completely paralyzed as a result. Meanwhile, Lowen finds a USB drive storing a confessional of Verity’s private thoughts, including the ones where she has negative feelings about her twin children, especially the one who just died recently.
Oh, I see. Jeremy is justified for wanting to replace Verity with Lowen. Is that it? Well, isn’t that salacious?
Verity is one of those films where you know there’s a twist, some huge fact that will come out ten minutes before the film ends. The twist will force us to recalibrate our feelings about the whole matter. In a sense, this is 100% true. Yet instead of feeling shock or horror or pity, my attitude changed to loathing the screenplay and the source material. Look, I wasn’t really enjoying your thriller to begin with – the bicycle crash was completely contrived, the sex is lurid voyeurism; you haven’t really justified motivation here. And now? I feel abused. So, hey, want some lurid, voyeuristic sex in a film completely empty in every other way? Sure. Enjoy.
There once was a replacement named Lowen
Before her break, she had nothin’ goin’
One day, a hubby came to life
Trying to replace his sick wife
For the paychecks and maybe also for a moan
Rated R, 117 Minutes
Director: Michael Showalter
Writer: Nick Acosta, Colleen Hoover
Genre: Movies that piss me off
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Viewers who have not yet seen a “surprise” ending
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The rest of us
