‘Verity’ Review: Dakota Johnson & Anne Hathaway Go Deliciously Trashy In Michael Showalter’s Self-Aware Yet Painful Erotic Thriller - The Playlist

TomAlright, here's something on my mind: ‘Verity’ Review: Dakota Johnson & Anne Hathaway Go Deliciously Trashy In Michael Showalter’s Self-Aware Yet Painful Erotic Thriller. Where do you stand on this?

CarolYou ask where I stand, but first I hate that they’re calling a movie “painful” when it’s clearly designed to be titillating trash. The review says it’s self-aware, yet if it leaves viewers feeling hurt, the director failed at his own joke. Who exactly gets bothered by that mix of smut and misery?

TomWait, "painful" doesn't mean the audience got bruised, it means the erotic tension hits hard because it's wrapped in genuine dread. As someone who writes erotica, I can tell you that pure pleasure without stakes is boring; the pain is what makes the desire feel risky. You're confusing emotional weight with bad direction.

CarolStakes are good, but there’s a difference between tension and making the viewer sit through discomfort for no reason. A kink educator looks at consent mechanics, not just mood lighting—when a film blurs those lines, it stops being playful and starts being manipulative. Why assume the audience wants to be unsettled rather than engaged?

TomCalling a thriller manipulative because it makes you uncomfortable misses how the genre works; dread isn’t a consent violation, it’s the point. When I craft a scene, I’m building pressure, not trapping the reader, so why treat a movie’s atmosphere like it’s skipping the basics? You’re applying classroom rules to a film that’s supposed to mess with your head.

CarolClassroom rules exist precisely because people confuse fiction with reality when the consent cues get fuzzy, and that confusion has real consequences for how viewers process power dynamics later. You’re dismissing the educational impact because you’d rather defend the aesthetic, but ignoring the lesson is still teaching something. Tell me exactly where the film draws its consent line so I can see if it holds up beyond just looking pretty.

TomThe review calls it self-aware, which means Showalter knows exactly where the boundaries are and is deliberately bending them for effect. I can’t pull a single consent cue out of a two-word tagline, but asking a film to spell out its ethics in subtitles turns every ambiguous moment into a compliance report. That kills the very tension we’ve been discussing.

CarolSelf-awareness lets a director bend rules, but it doesn’t erase the responsibility for how that bending lands on vulnerable viewers. You don’t need subtitles to understand that a film about coercion should signal its themes clearly enough that nobody mistakes it for a relationship model. Where does the marketing actually draw that distinction?

TomMarketing for an erotic thriller relies on shock value, not ethical disclaimers, so expecting a clear line in the ads is missing the whole point of the genre. We aren't selling a how-to guide for relationships; we're selling the adrenaline rush of dangerous fantasy. You want the trailer to explain the psychology before you even buy the ticket?

CarolAdrenaline is fine, but labeling dangerous behavior as entertainment without context trains audiences to normalize risk. If Verity presents coercion as merely thrilling, it fails to distinguish between safe play and actual harm. Who decides when a scene crosses from edgy storytelling into harmful messaging?

TomNo single person gets to decide that boundary, which is why critics matter more than censors here. The review itself notes the film is painfully self-aware, implying it signals its own artificiality rather than offering a manual. You’re trying to legislate taste from across the room while I’m just reading the room.

CarolCriticism isn't legislation, it's just pointing out where the narrative logic breaks down so viewers can separate fantasy from function. You keep treating ambiguity as a virtue, but in a story about power, unclear signals create real-world confusion that no amount of "painful" self-reflection fixes. The issue is whether the film respects the intelligence of its audience enough to offer clarity alongside the chaos.

TomTreating ambiguity as a flaw ignores that the best erotic fiction thrives on the space between what’s said and what’s felt. If Hathaway’s performance needs a safety briefing to land, the writing hasn’t done its job yet. Stop asking for a textbook answer to a question the genre was designed to leave open-ended.

CarolLeaving questions open works for romance novels, but when the stakes involve non-consensual acts, unresolved ambiguity becomes a liability rather than a stylistic choice. You can’t have it both ways—use the discomfort to drive the plot forward and then blame the audience for needing context. Clarity isn’t a safety briefing; it’s the basic respect owed to anyone watching a scene unfold.

TomYou're right that "safe play" and "actual harm" need a hard line, but calling a movie a liability because it makes you squirm is overkill. The review says it's trashy and painful, not instructional, so the film is doing what it set out to do: make us feel the wrongness of the situation without pretending it's okay. Let people walk away unsettled instead of demanding a lecture at the end credits.

CarolWalking away unsettled is the intended effect, but it stops being effective the second viewers mistake the fiction for a blueprint for their own lives. Showalter knows his characters are trapped, yet the script refuses to give them—or us—a clear exit from the moral gray area. That refusal is where the pain comes from, and it’s the part of Verity I’ll be thinking about long after the credits roll.

TomYou’re holding onto the pain like it proves the writing worked, but a good thriller gives you the shiver and still lets you breathe afterward. Whether Verity leaves the audience confused or just uncomfortable is a distinction you haven’t bothered to check yet.