I saw Verity the day it came out in theaters, and let me just say… WOW. I have never
read the book, so I went into the movie completely blind. I had no idea what to expect,
and I think that made the experience more interesting. This movie is dark, mysterious,
obsessive, and constantly leaves you questioning what is real and who you can trust.
Warning: major spoilers ahead!
From the opening scene, we see just how dark and eerie this movie truly is. A little
background for those who haven’t seen it: struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh is hired by
Jeremy Crawford to finish the book series of his injured, seemingly catatonic wife, Verity
Crawford, a bestselling author. On her way to Verity’s city office, Lowen witnesses a
brutal cycling accident that kills the cyclist. Blood flies onto her face and ruins her outfit.
At the time, we don’t know it, but the charming man who helps her is Jeremy.
Lowen then decides to help Verity and travels to the Crawford family’s cabin in Vermont
to go through Verity’s writing and finish the remaining books in her series. From the
moment she arrives, something feels wrong. Lowen is immediately suspicious of Verity
and the circumstances surrounding her condition. Verity appears to be completely
paralyzed and unable to communicate, but Lowen starts noticing things that make her
question whether Verity is really as helpless as she seems. The sudden glances, jump
scares, and looks of desperation only toward Lowen make Lowen feel absolutely crazy.
One of the most interesting parts of the movie is how you really cannot miss a second.
Almost every detail seems important, and something that might seem insignificant at
first can completely change how you understand the story later. As Lowen digs deeper
into Verity’s life, she discovers a hard drive containing Verity’s unfinished manuscript.
What she reads answers some of her questions but creates even more.
The manuscript reveals a much darker side of Verity. It describes disturbing thoughts
and events surrounding her children and her relationship with Jeremy. But what stood
out to me most was the way Verity seemed to resent being a mother, especially when it
came to her daughter. Instead of seeing motherhood as something that brought her and
Jeremy closer, Verity seems to view her children as something that takes Jeremy’s
attention away from her. Her resentment toward her daughter becomes especially
disturbing because it suggests that Verity wanted Jeremy all to herself.
To me, this makes Verity’s character even more complicated. Her obsession with
Jeremy isn’t simply about loving her husband. It feels possessive. She wants to be the
most important person in his life, and motherhood threatens that. Her daughter
becomes almost a symbol of everything that stands between Verity and the relationship she wants with Jeremy. That makes the manuscript’s darker descriptions of her children
even more disturbing because it suggests that Verity may have viewed her own children
as competition for her husband’s love and attention.
At the same time, we have to remember that we don’t actually know whether the
manuscript is telling the truth. That uncertainty makes Verity’s resentment even more
interesting. If the manuscript is real, then Verity is capable of horrifying things because
of her obsession with Jeremy. If it is fiction, then she is still showing us how easily she
can imagine herself as someone capable of those things. Either way, the manuscript
gives Lowen—and the audience—a reason to fear her.
The more Lowen discovers, the more trapped she seems to become in Verity and
Jeremy’s complicated relationship. She isn’t simply investigating Verity anymore. She is
becoming emotionally involved with Jeremy, which makes it harder for her to remain
objective.
I also think the movie does a great job showing just how obsessive Jeremy is. At first,
Jeremy seems like the grieving, loving husband who simply wants someone to help
finish his wife’s books. But as the story continues, we realize there is much more going
on beneath the surface. Jeremy doesn’t hire Lowen simply because Verity loves her
writing. He hires her because he does. To me, it seems like Jeremy sees Lowen as an
opportunity to escape the life he has built with Verity. His relationship with Lowen
becomes part of his attempt to get away from everything.
This also creates an interesting parallel between Jeremy and Verity. Both of them seem
to want control over the other person. Verity wants Jeremy all to herself, even resenting
the children who divide his attention, while Jeremy eventually wants to escape the life
he has with Verity. Their relationship is built on obsession, possession, and control
rather than simply love.
The ending is where everything becomes even more complicated.
After reading Verity’s manuscript, Jeremy discovers the final line: “I guess I’ll just
crash into a tree.” Frustrated, devastated, and furious by what he has read, Jeremy
appears to do exactly what Verity wrote. He drugs her, puts her in the car, and crashes
her into a tree. In that moment, Jeremy believes he knows the truth about his wife and
believes he is justified in what he does.
But then, just before Lowen moves out, she finds a letter written by Verity.
The letter completely changes everything.
Suddenly, we have to question whether Verity’s manuscript was actually a confession or
whether it was all fiction. Verity claims that the manuscript was simply an exercise in
writing from the perspective of a horrible person. If that is true, then Jeremy killed his
wife based on something he misunderstood. But if the manuscript was real, then Verity
was exactly the person Jeremy believed her to be.
And that is what I found most interesting about the ending: everyone is in the wrong.
Jeremy is wrong because he takes Verity’s life into his own hands. Lowen is wrong
because she becomes involved in a relationship with a married man and believes she
understands the situation even though she doesn’t have all the answers. And Verity,
whether she was telling the truth or lying, manipulated everyone around her.
Even Verity’s possible resentment toward motherhood becomes part of this uncertainty.
Was she truly a mother who hated the attention her children received from Jeremy and
wanted him completely for herself? Or was she a writer who created an extremely
disturbing fictional character and then became trapped by the consequences of that
writing? The movie never gives us enough information to know for sure.
The biggest question is left up to the viewer: Who do you believe?
Personally, one detail that really stood out to me was Verity’s name. The word “verity”
means truth, yet almost everything surrounding her is built on lies. She lies through her
writing, she pretends to be paralyzed, and even the truth about her manuscript is left
uncertain. I don’t think that is a coincidence. Her name almost feels like another clue
from the movie—a reminder that the truth is there somewhere, but we may never
actually know what it is.
Overall, I thought Verity was a very interesting movie. It kept me paying attention
because you couldn’t miss a second without potentially missing a vital detail. Even after
the movie ended, I was still thinking about what actually happened and which version of
the story I believed. I think that is what makes the movie so effective. It doesn’t simply
give you an answer—it makes you question everyone.
My biggest takeaway: sometimes the scariest part of a story isn’t knowing the truth. It’s
realizing that you may never know what the truth actually was.