Directed by: Michael Showalter
Distributed by: Amazon MGM Studios
Written by Taylor Baker
30/100
Michael Showalter’s latest film “Verity” is a staid adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s book of the same name. If crowds are a measurement as to whether the core audience intended for a project is satisfied, then the early screening, filled almost exclusively, it seemed from pre-film chatter, with decisively and passionately engaged fans of Hoover’s work, was not. It is decidedly unfortunate, then, that this very crowd was resigned to sighing, general quietness, and murmured discussion as they exited the theater. Throughout its duration and at its end, not a hint of a clap or an ounce of enthusiasm erupted. It’s a bad look for an adaptation of what I’ve learned is one of her best books, and one that ranks second on this recently released Forbes list.
In the shift from silent film to talkies, quite a bit shifted, but the two more significant elements generally agreed upon are these: the precision of staging to conjure an image lost its priority to a negotiated mark that would get the best mic pickup on a given performer while still capturing a serviceable image, and the loss, broadly speaking but not entirely, of using text to communicate with the audience. There are exceptions that prove the rule, such as George Lucas’s opening crawl for the “Star Wars” film series, but they’re generally few and far between. What makes Showalter’s adaptation fascinating is how much worse it makes itself by showing the audience Hoover’s words written on the screen.
I cannot recall any other instance when a film adapting a novel made itself less credible and more contrived and vapid by simply putting the original author’s own words on the screen. It serves to bludgeon the audience over the head with what the images and screenplay themselves should be doing. The plainness and plastic dialogue accentuate the gift of Dakota Johnson to heighten the material and turn in something approximating a living, breathing character that in the hands of a less gifted actress would have failed to emerge. There is something in the bones of the business plan of “Verity” that showcases an emerging market, even if the product itself ultimately fails. There is room for psychosexual, female-focused films, depicting female protagonists, based upon the corpus of steamy literature they’ve created a market for since the mid-aughts. What’s certain is that Hoover’s words and Showalter’s direction are not the right path forward. Something closer to “The Housemaid” or 2022’s Adrian Lyne-helmed and oft-maligned “Deep Water” seems the direction to aim for.
“Verity” Trailer
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