Film Review: Verity

Location, location, location.

Yes, what matters is the film, but frankly, I have to start with the house it was filmed in. Location, location, location. The house and the amazing cinematography around the outside of it, coming in, deserve an Academy Award in a category of their own. Best Set Location. And yes, it’s a real house. Beckoning Path in Armonk, New York. Some interiors were built on a soundstage, but that house is real.

That house. Although after the film, I’m not sure anyone would want to buy it. OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming around plot, acting, and script.

I’m not a Dakota Johnson fan, although I liked her very much in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. And to be honest, she’s just way too comfortable taking off her clothes for me. Both on the red carpet and in films. And this is no exception. She seems to love being close to nude amongst us peons. And no, I’m not just jealous. Although I might be more comfortable with her body if it were mine.

Her bathtub scene? I don’t think I’d ever take another bath again. I’ll be showering.

And I guess you have to say that’s part of acting, but she still always plays the same personality. I call it the behind-the-lashes personality. You’re made to believe that there’s brilliance behind the lashes, but there might just be a shallow mind. A judgmental, shallow mind that never challenges anything other than from behind the lashes. I can’t think of a role she’s played where that doesn’t behoove her. She’s got it down pat. There’s no question. And at the same time, of all her roles, I think this is her best-acted one.

And of course, Anne Hathaway as the victim or possibly the pretend victim or possibly the villain. I will not answer that in my review. She is very good at what she does. And yet I don’t really enjoy watching her do it. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the way she behaves off camera. I know way too much about her true personality to be able to allow her to present me another one that has nothing to do with who she is. So many actors have this issue now. So little time.

The plot? It’s brilliant. And the ending? Nope. And I pride myself on being someone who usually figures it out somewhere along the way. God, these are complicated women. Supposedly hiding a dark side. And it’s all about the writer. Not of the script, but the fact that both of them are writers and struggling with the darkness of what they enjoy writing about.

When The Silence of the Lambs came out, and I realized that my neighbor four doors down was the author of the novel, I remember telling someone that I hoped he never knew who I was. Somebody who can think of that kind of plot is not somebody you want to hang out with. And both the writers in our film feel that way about themselves. Shame? Maybe not shame. Maybe it’s fear of who they can create on the page. Either way, they’re not necessarily proud of it.

The film is based on the book by Colleen Hoover, whose other books made into films include It Ends with Us, Regretting You, and Reminders of Him.

I will say, for those of you who love the book, there are some pretty major elements that are changed, including details around the ending, although the central question remains the same. But don’t let that stop you. And don’t find out what they are beforehand. A few unfamiliar twists and turns might make you sit up a little straighter while you’re watching. Who wants to sit there and have the same story told to you over and over again, like your uncle at Thanksgiving?

A lot of this is the cinematography. God, it’s good. Everywhere it’s good. Every single place it’s good.

I have to get back to Dakota for a minute. If I think about it, and I did not read the book so I’m not sure about this, after going back over it in my mind, I think she was a psychopath. Pay close attention to her crossing the street at the beginning and her reactions to it all. That’s all I’ll say for now. And the problem is Dakota can’t play a psychopath. She doesn’t have the depth as an actor, and I suspect as a human, she is much more Birkenstock in sexy clothing. One step removed does not make a psychopath. And I’m not sure that doesn’t mean she was miscast. I know that’s a double negative, but I’m not sure it makes a positive.

And then we have the nurse. And this is the only place I feel the director and the writer should be criticized. It’s almost like you taunt us with the possibility of her being intricately part of the twist that you know is going to come. And they don’t wrap that up. It’s like a decoy that gets left on the field when everybody else goes home.

Normally, this is not my kind of movie. I actually went because of the trailer, and I hate trailers. I say go, go, go. I say see women who are not good humans present as if you want them to be, and maybe they are.

And I have to leave you with the husband/lover/husband. Josh Hartnett. After a huge beginning to his career, he stepped away from Hollywood’s spotlight, uncomfortable with the fame. And watching him here, I’m reminded of what we missed.

He has the hardest job in this film, I think. We have to believe that these women want him. We have to understand why. And we have to keep watching him, wondering what he knows, what he doesn’t know, and what we don’t know about him. He makes all of that look easy. There’s nothing easy about it.

And unlike my experience watching the women, I’m not thinking about Josh Hartnett. I’m thinking about the husband. The lover. The husband. There are great actors. He’s one of them.

I blown away by the house. I left thinking about the people inside it. And now, going back over it in my mind, I’m not sure I’d let any of them into mine.