The movie Verity almost had two very different endings.
Director Michael Showalter is opening up about the different versions of the ending that they made and why they ultimately landed on the one that is in the movie.
The movie follows struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh, played by Dakota Johnson, who is hired to finish a successful book series written by acclaimed author Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway. Verity is unable to complete the books following a mysterious accident, leading Lowen to move into the Crawford family’s home while working on the project. While there, she discovers what appears to be an unpublished manuscript containing disturbing revelations about Verity, her husband Jeremy Crawford, played by Josh Hartnett, and their family.
“We tried a hundred million different ways to end this movie,” Showalter told Variety. “Figuring out how to end the movie was the biggest challenge and the last thing that we did. There’s two very significant other ways that the movie ended.”
How the movie actually ends
The unpublished manuscript reveals that Verity resented her children because they stole her husband’s attention from her. In the manuscript, Verity confesses to killing their daughter by capsizing their kayak on purpose. Their son survived, though she was hoping to kill him too. The end of the manuscript includes Verity’s confession that she is going to commit vehicular suicide to avoid facing consequences for her actions.
Lowen begins to hate Verity and falls in love with Jeremy. She tells him about the manuscript, which leads to Jeremy confronting Verity.
Verity pops out of her alleged catatonic state and admits to faking her condition. Jeremy starts strangling her, but Lowen stops him and says they need to stage the murder to look like an accident. They suffocate her and dump her body in the lake, telling the police that she must have woken up from the catatonic state and walked outside and drowned by accident.
The movie flashes forward in time and Lowen is now pregnant with Jeremy’s daughter and has already published the next novel in Verity’s book series. They’re getting ready to move out of the lake house and Lowen finds a handwritten letter buried in the floorboards.
The letter was written by Verity, to Jeremy. In the letter, she says that the manuscript was a writing exercise and that Harper’s death was truly an accident. She always loved her children and everything in the manuscript was just to get in the mind of a villain.
In the letter, we learn that Jeremy accidentally discovered the manuscript and thought that it was all true. He drugged Verity and staged her suicide just how she wrote in the book. She survived the crash and recovered, but pretended to be in a catatonic state as she was worried Jeremy would report her to the police or kill her.
Lowen is clearly shocked, but decides not to say anything to Jeremy. The movie ends with her in a car with Jeremy and his son Crew, driving away from the house and clearly unsure what to believe about the people in her life.
All about the alternate endings
Showalter opened up to Variety about the alternate endings.
“In one version, Lowen, in that car scene, has that moment where she says, ‘I don’t know who to believe. One thing’s for sure: Verity was a master manipulator.’ And then she puts on a pair of sunglasses, leans back, and has this very cat-with-a-mouse-in-its-mouth look, puts her hand out the window, and as they’re driving away and a song is playing, she’s making [waves through the air] with her hand. So, the idea is that Lowen is the master villain,” he said.
And there was one other big change.
“And then, you cut back to Verity sinking into the lake and her eyes open,” he revealed.
So, the movie almost ended with Lowen implying that she’s coming up with a big plan AND with Verity being alive.
Why they didn’t use those endings
Showalter told Variety, “We tried a hundred different versions of that — of Verity still being alive, and of Lowen being the dark phoenix, because we liked it and it was really, really cool. It was this amazing moment of, Holy crap! Has Lowen been the mastermind the whole time? It was the ending we always thought we were gonna do and it was what we had planned on. So, not showing her put the glasses on was such a massive revelation to realize.”
Ultimately, people in the focus group screenings they held did not like the “dark phoenix” ending.
“A lot of times, when you’re screening a movie [for focus groups] and you’re getting feedback, the feedback is generic. It’s like, ‘I didn’t like the ending,’ but they may not be able to really tell you why. And what we figured out was, it’s because they want Lowen to be in a place of uncertainty when the movie’s over,” he said. “It took us a really long time to realize the audience isn’t ready to make the kind of decision at the end of the movie that we had been giving Lowen. Lowen had this moment where she put on the sunglasses and was like, I don’t give a shit, and the audience wasn’t ready to go there with her. The audience wanted her to be like, What the f*** have I done? We realized the audience is Lowen and the audience wasn’t ready to put those glasses on.”
Find out if you should stay after the credits roll for an extra scene!
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