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Verity Movie Adapts Book with Major Changes
Confirmed
In Short: The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel 'Verity' starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson deviates significantly from the book.
The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel 'Verity' has hit theaters, starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson.
As the movie opens, Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) reads excerpts from her new book at a bookstore to a sparse audience.
Lowen is then offered a gig to ghostwrite for popular author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), with Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) confirming Verity's personal request.
Once Lowen is at Verity's home, she begins exploring Verity's work and office, finding a first-person manuscript that captivates her.
The film captures Hoover's trademark melodrama but with an airport thriller twist, directed by Michael Showalter.
However, 'Verity' feels like a wasted opportunity to end the Hoover movie series on a high note, with its back-and-forth structure becoming repetitive.
Despite this, book clubs will likely flock to the movie, and the Hoover train will continue to chug along.
In the book, Lowen discovers a manuscript revealing Verity's jealousy over Jeremy's attention towards her twin sister Harper and her brother Chastin.
The movie omits Chastin's storyline, focusing instead on Harper as Verity's twin.
Fans of the book will notice that the movie adaptation removes some crucial plot points, such as Verity's jealousy towards Chastin and Harper.
Despite these changes, the film retains key elements from the book, including the bitemarks on the headboard.
The movie also cuts Lowen's sleepwalking, a significant part of her psychological background in the novel.
What this adds
The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 'Verity' deviates significantly from the book, with major plot changes and omissions.
The movie's structure begins to feel repetitive and monotonous, but it retains some key elements from the book.
The film's changes are explained as necessary to fit the movie format, with director Michael Showalter understanding and agreeing with most of the alterations.
The movie adaptation omits Chastin's storyline, focusing instead on Harper as Verity's twin.
Background
The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel 'Verity' starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett deviates from the book in several key ways.
The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel 'Verity' has hit theaters, starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson.
What's confirmed
- The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's book Verity —starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett—is now in theaters.
- Verity movie review & rating: “I don’t read novels one can get at an airport,” declares Lowen ( Dakota Johnson ).
- Which is her way of saying that her books are “not popular”, but that they need not be.
- This is after she has taken up the offer to ghost-write for one very popular writer (Verity, played by Anne Hathaway ) because, well, who doesn’t need money?
- As you may have guessed by now, neither does much writing in this latest Colleen Hoover book to be made into a film.
- All this is a pretext to set up a story as unlikely as it gets and, within the first few minutes of which, the paths of Lowen and Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) have crossed at a traffic light where an accident has left passerby Lowen splashed with the victim’s blood.
What's still developing
- Subsequent adaptations "Regretting You" and "Reminders of Him" have failed to match the success of the 2024 movie that started it all (but didn't do that bad at the worldwide box office, both coming in around $90 million).
- Perhaps the latest Hoover adaptation, "Verity," will be the next big one. The first three Hoover movies all dabbled in the same brand of melodrama, while "Verity" is a different spin on what has been seen from the Hoover Factory. The new film, directed by Michael Showalter, captures Hoover's sense of heightened drama and tortured romances but with an airport thriller sheen. It's a page-turning book that can easily be picked up at any Hudson News outlet while waiting for a flight, and the ludicrous thriller was destined to become a movie once audiences began responding to Hoover's work. As a pulpy read, "Verity" was disposably entertaining.
- Lowen is being offered a gig ghostwriting popular author Verity Crawford's (Anne Hathaway) next three books, and Jeremy is there to tell Lowen that Verity personally requested she be the one to get the job (Surprise!
- She finds a first-person manuscript Verity wrote and becomes instantly addicted to the twisted words she put to page.
- Given Verity's condition, Hathaway spends most of the movie silent but gets some moments to chew on through flashbacks or as Lowen is reading the manuscript.
- It's the kind of book that's hard to put down, even when it feels like consuming a massive pile of junk food.
- “I think there's one thing that we both missed, which is Lowen's sleepwalking, which is very alive in the book, and it's so much of her psychological background and what is going on with her internally,” she said.
- The failed attempt is revealed through Verity’s autobiography manuscript, and is explained to be the reason why one of her daughters has a scar on her face.
- The pair also celebrate Lowen's birthday the day after it happens, whereas in the book, she tells him about her birthday the day before.
- From The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada and Les Misérables to Fifty Shades of Grey, The Lost Daughter and Persuasion, both actresses have plenty of experience bringing popular books to the big screen.
- “I imagine sitting down with the world's biggest fan of the book and explaining why certain things couldn't make it, and when that fan would be like, ‘I understand’, and when that fan would be like, ‘Then don't make it’,” she shared.
- In case you didn’t, we’ve rounded up seven of the biggest changes Verity made from the novel — and yes, there are spoilers ahead!