‘Verity’ Reviews: What Critics Say About Anne Hathaway’s New Thriller

• Verity, the Colleen Hoover thriller starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, opens only in theaters on Friday, Oct. 2.
• The first reviews arrived on Wednesday, Sept. 30, and they split: 46% of 35 critics counted on Rotten Tomatoes that afternoon were positive.
• Almost every review says the movie tips into camp. The disagreement is over whether that makes it fun or a misfire.

The reviews are in for Verity, and critics are divided on Anne Hathaway‘s new thriller: some call it a campy good time, others a dud. The movie opens only in theaters on Friday, Oct. 2.

It is based on Colleen Hoover‘s 2018 novel. Hathaway, 43, plays Verity Crawford, a best-selling author left unable to move or speak after a car accident. Dakota Johnson, 36, is Lowen Ashleigh, the struggling writer hired to finish her books, and Josh Hartnett, 48, is Verity’s husband, Jeremy.

What are critics saying about ‘Verity’?

As of Wednesday afternoon, 46% of the 35 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes were positive. That score moves as more critics weigh in before the weekend. Here is where the first named reviews landed, from warmest to coldest:

• Screen Rant (Liz Declan), 8/10: the most enthusiastic so far. Calls Johnson and Hathaway the film’s two standout performances.
• Time Out (Larushka Ivan-Zadeh), 3/5: a wild, fun ride with gothic thrills, dinged for one twist too many. Credits director Michael Showalter with getting the story’s “somewhat deranged tone” right.
• Collider (Carly Lane), 6/10: a faithful adaptation that plays it too safe. It is less creepy, campy and sexy than it could have been.
• TheWrap (Amelia Emberwing): silly, sexy and overstuffed, with Hathaway playing it “camp light.” Too long at nearly two hours, but one to watch with friends.
• The Hollywood Reporter (Richard Lawson): fun for its first hour, then undone by clunky reveals. The verdict: a “literary misfire.”
• Variety (Guy Lodge): the harshest. Calls it a flat-footed dud whose biggest laughs are unintended, and says Hathaway is given little to play.

The common thread is tone. Even the positive reviews describe a movie that is partly in on the joke, and the negative ones say the joke lands in the wrong places.

What is ‘Verity’ about?

Lowen is a writer with little money and fewer readers. Jeremy Crawford hires her to ghostwrite the last books in his wife’s hit series, and she moves into the family’s isolated house in snowy Vermont to work through Verity’s notes.

There she finds a manuscript Verity never meant anyone to read: an autobiography full of disturbing confessions about her family. Lowen, drawn to Jeremy, has to decide how much of it is true.

Who is in the cast of ‘Verity’?

• Anne Hathaway as Verity Crawford. She is also a producer on the film.
• Dakota Johnson as Lowen Ashleigh
• Josh Hartnett as Jeremy Crawford
• Ismael Cruz Córdova as Corey, Lowen’s agent
• Brady Wagner as Crew, the Crawfords’ son

Showalter also directed Hathaway in The Idea of You (2024), and Nick Antosca wrote the screenplay. Gayle King, Alex Cooper and Sean Evans of Hot Ones make cameos.

Verity is Hathaway’s fifth movie of 2026, after Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey and The End of Oak Street.

Hartnett had a harder sell at home. His goddaughter, who read the book at 12, told him he was “like a thousand years old” for Jeremy and wanted Timothée Chalamet instead, he said on The Tonight Show on Sept. 29. “He’s written in his 40s,” Hartnett pointed out.

Is the ‘Verity’ movie faithful to the book?

Mostly, according to the reviews. Collider’s Carly Lane writes that the film follows Hoover’s novel nearly beat for beat. The one change she flags is small: the Crawford family has one fewer child on screen than on the page.

Verity is the fourth Hoover novel to reach theaters in just over two years, after It Ends With Us, Regretting You and Reminders of Him.

When and where can you watch ‘Verity’?

Only in theaters, starting Friday, Oct. 2. It is rated R for sexual content, language, bloody images, some nudity and violence, and runs just under two hours.

Amazon MGM Studios is releasing the film, and no streaming date has been announced. Here is the official trailer:

More from Movies & TV: every new movie coming to Netflix in October and where to watch Andrew Garfield’s The Uprising.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: reviews by Liz Declan (Screen Rant), Larushka Ivan-Zadeh (Time Out), Carly Lane (Collider), Amelia Emberwing (TheWrap), Richard Lawson (The Hollywood Reporter) and Guy Lodge (Variety), all Sept. 30, 2026; Rotten Tomatoes (score and review count checked Sept. 30, 2026, afternoon ET; rating and cast); Josh Hartnett on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Sept. 29, 2026; Amazon MGM Studios (release date, trailer, clips and featurette). Photos and video: Amazon MGM Studios (trailer, teaser, clips “A Brilliant Undiscovered Voice” and “Resting Bored Face,” featurette “Inside Verity’s Closet”); Today (Nine Network, Australia); The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (NBC).