She’s the queen of the page-turners. Hollywood can’t get enough of Colleen Hoover’s glossy, emotionally charged sagas, and her BookTok-fuelled popularity as an author has been welcomed with open arms by cinema audiences. Just two years after the surprise success of It Ends With Us, the fourth film with her name on it arrives in cinemas, bringing with it a change in tone. Not that it totally abandons romance, but Verity takes place in a darker and more ambiguous world.

Struggling author Lowen (Dakota Johnson) receives a lucrative and intriguing offer, one that she can’t afford to turn down. The deal is that she ghostwrites for top writer Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), who is unable to complete her current projects. Putting her misgivings to one side, she moves to the family’s country home and finds that her first assignment is writing Verity’s autobiography. While immersing herself in research for the book, Lowen also finds time to become closer to Verity’s husband, Jeremy (Josh Hartnett), and soon understands the reasons for his wife’s withdrawal from public life.

A tragedy which still casts a shadow over the house also piques her interest, but it’s the chilling notes written in preparation for the autobiography that she can’t get out of her head. They blur the lines between fiction and reality, so much so that she finds it increasingly hard to tell the difference between the two.

Hathaway’s name has been written all over 2026. As her fifth film of the year, Verity further underlines the variety in her most recent output, both in terms of concept and character, ranging from The Devil Wears Prada 2 to The Odyssey. And giving her the lead in a Hoover adaptation, which taps into the current taste for the dark and the sinister, points to yet another box office hit. The author’s fans will take her cameo as her seal of approval on the adaptation.

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It’s also part of the decidedly Hitchcockian aura that director Michael Showalter has cast over proceedings. Rebecca vibes permeate the narrative, from the isolated house and the past casting a shadow over the present, to a member of staff who could easily be a descendant of the sinister Mrs Danvers. Add that to the visual glamour and the gothic undertones, and the influence of the Master of Suspense is never too far away.

The film also takes Showalter into twisty territory. Rom-coms have been his favourite stomping ground ever since his breakout as a writer/director with The Big Sick, despite dipping a toe in other genres. Here, he embraces the psychological thriller with relish, yet he never, ever takes it too seriously. There’s a self-aware twinkle in the film’s eye, especially when it comes to jump scares, plot twists and the occasional red herring, and it knows exactly what it is – an entertaining piece of pulp fiction. And it works, especially if you keep your disbelief well and truly suspended. With Showalter just as much at home with the dark side of movies as he is with rom-coms, it bodes well for a much-anticipated project on his horizon.

He’s attached to direct the sequel to the Octavia Spencer comedy/chiller Ma (2019) and, although the current title is the less-than-inspiring Ma 2, the prospect of the director bringing the same sense of mischief and sheer enjoyment to the story is lip-smacking. Bring it on!

★★★

In cinemas from October 2nd / Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Brady Wagner / Dir: Michael Showalter / Sony Pictures UK / 15

About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

Freda is a Senior Writer at The People's Movies. A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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