There was a time, once upon a time, when an avid cinema goer could pop to their local multiplex, pay whatever it was for a ticket and watch something thrilling and erotic. We called them erotic thrillers and Michael Douglas was usually in them. Maybe audiences became more prudish, or studios more coy or Michael Douglas too old but the erotic thriller died and has never really made much of a come back.
Sure, there are erotic-esc thrillers – The Voyeurs for example. But, even when erotic thriller maestro Adrian Lyne came back to directing he made the thoroughly un-erotic and un-thrilling Deep Water. From the outset Verity looks like it’s promising some classic erotic thrills. Anne Hathaway (always reliable) is a successful author of dark crime novels told from the perspective of the villain (so far so promising). Following a car accident she is left wheelchair bound, unable to speak or move so her husband Josh Hartnett (similarly reliable) hires newbie author Dakota Johnson (often a fan of not wearing clothes) to finish the books. But instead she discovers something dark about Hathaway.
Now that is the perfect set up for a thriller that is also erotic. Yet Verity despite some occasionally interesting direction from Michael Showalter, never truly finds it’s tone or footing. The issue lies in execution, maybe the source novel from Colleen Hoover isn’t daring enough, or maybe both Showalter and screenwriter Nick Antcosta are too coy, but the film only sparingly ramps up eroticism.
Hathaway is deliciously sultry and devious as Verity Crawford the titular author who we get to know through a dark and disturbing voice over autobiography. As Johnson’s Lowen digs into her new boss’ past she finds herself attracted to loving husband Jeremy or potentially the ideal of Verity herself. But this is never truly explored. One sequence in which Johnson pleasures herself in a hilariously over the top bath while fantasising about making love to Hartnett only to start imagining what sex with Hathaway would be like is the closest it gets to the sleazy joy that the work of Lyne, Paul Verheoeven or Brian de Palma used to offer.
It’s these flashes, and a moment when while enjoying the oral pleasure of her husband, Anne Hathaway bites the wooden headboard of her bed where the film starts teasing a trashier film. Instead the film plays up the romance between Johnson and Hartnett to a degree that you get bored during these sequences because neither have much chemistry and frankly, it’s not very engaging. Johnson is perfectly fine but Hathaway is offering up scenery chewing and sadly just fine doesn’t compare.
The film also undermines it’s moments of tension by shoehorning in annoying pop songs when the score by Volker Bertelmann is carrying whole sequences. It’s hard not to be disappointed when there are brilliant elements. One voice over by Anne Hathaway punctuated by a change in vocal inflections shows what a powerful actress she is. It’s a film that should really offer her more in terms of ramping up the femme fatale.
It’s also probably a flaw that it hews closely to it’s source. The finale is lacking somewhat despite an epilogue that is delightfully twisted and a final scene that is smile enduringly clever. This is almost a great film, one that flirts with something pulpy and enjoyable but sits content to be okay.
Hathaway, however, delivers.
Verity is in cinemas from 2nd October
