'Verity' review: Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway get tangled in an erotic thriller with no pulse - TheOnlyCritic

TomHey, this one's been eating at me a bit: 'Verity' review: Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway get tangled in an erotic thriller with no pulse. Where do you fall on it?

CarolYou’re asking where I “fall,” but the review says there’s no pulse, which just means the film forgot why we care about these characters in the first place. For anyone trying to watch a tension-filled scene without feeling bored, that’s a waste of two hours. I’m not interested in where my feelings are when the screen goes flat.

TomCalling it "flat" is a little harsh, since the whole pitch of Verity is supposed to be suffocating dread rather than heart-racing action. But I’ll admit, if the chemistry between Hathaway and Johnson doesn’t land, the movie basically loses its engine entirely. It’s hard to stay invested when the central hook feels like a lecture instead of a threat.

CarolThe thing about calling it "dread" is that people can only sit with discomfort for a few minutes before they start checking their phones. When the screen goes quiet because the director stopped moving the plot forward, that isn't atmosphere anymore—it's just empty space. I'd rather watch a bad car chase than sit through twenty minutes of static pretending to be psychological horror.

TomThough comparing Verity to a car chase misses the point entirely—this is meant to feel like being trapped in a house with no doors, not driving down a highway. If the film fails, it’s because it couldn’t sustain that claustrophobic pressure, not because it wasn’t fast enough. That’s a craft problem, not a pacing issue.

CarolTrapped in a house with no doors sounds great until the writer forgets to lock the windows too, leaving us staring at wallpaper while the stakes evaporate. Claustrophobia requires constant escalation; if the audience starts wondering whether the main character will even leave the room, the trap has broken. A slow burn needs fuel, and right now it looks like they ran out halfway through the first act.

TomYou keep saying they ran out of fuel, but I think the real mistake was loading the tank with the wrong stuff. Verity is supposed to run on sexual tension, not just spooky vibes, so if the chemistry fizzles, swapping it for jump scares won’t save the ride. We’d end up watching a haunted house special starring Hathaway instead of the erotic thriller she actually signed up for.

CarolSwapping tension for jump scares is a lazy move that ignores the actual premise here. The movie sells itself on the idea that love turns into obsession, so if the intimate scenes lack heat, adding ghosts just proves the writers didn't understand what made the original book scary. That’s not a fix, it’s a genre error that alienates both audiences.

TomMixing genres is a mess, but I still think the core failure is that nobody made the obsession feel dangerous enough to matter. Without that edge, the whole premise crumbles regardless of how many jumps they throw in. It’s like writing a thriller where the villain is just annoyed instead of threatening.

CarolAnnoyed villains don’t work because viewers need to believe the protagonist is physically unsafe, not just emotionally irritated. In Verity specifically, the danger comes from the power imbalance in those private moments; if Hathaway doesn’t look genuinely cornered by her own desire, the suspense dies no matter how loud the soundtrack gets. You can’t fake a sense of violation with acting choices that play it safe.

TomPlaying it safe is exactly why the film feels dead on arrival—if the actress flinches away from the taboo, the audience does too. The whole appeal of Verity is that the reader knows something is deeply wrong, yet stays hooked anyway, which requires the performance to lean in, not pull back. You can’t sell a slippery slope if your lead character keeps trying to climb out of it.

CarolLeaning in works when the script gives the actor somewhere to go, but right now the dialogue reads flat against that intensity. If Johnson plays the descent with conviction but the words around her are generic, the scene collapses under its own weight because there’s no narrative anchor holding the tension together.

TomGeneric dialogue kills the vibe before the camera even pans, because we’re supposed to hear the lie in every word she says. If the script strips out that specific, twisted nuance, we’re left with two actresses mugging over blank pages instead of unraveling a real psychological knot.

CarolTwisted nuance means nothing if the pacing drags between beats, because the audience needs time to process the shift from care to control. Right now the scenes stall, so even the best delivery can’t bridge the gap where the plot should be tightening its grip. We’re waiting for a knife twist that never lands.

TomPacing is just another way of saying the editor couldn't find the nerve to cut the fat. A thriller without a pulse isn't a mood piece, it's a waste of time, and no amount of lingering shots fixes a story that refuses to commit to its own darkness.

CarolRefusing to commit to the darkness is a directorial choice, not a technical flaw. When the edit lingers on the empty space rather than the fear, you aren’t building atmosphere—you’re hiding behind the silence. The movie fails because it treats the erotic elements as a liability to avoid instead of the engine driving the plot forward.

TomSo the book had teeth and the movie pulled them out? That’s the only reason anyone cared enough to watch. Until Dakota Johnson looks genuinely ruined by what she did, Verity is just expensive window dressing.