Last week, my roommate and I went and saw Verity- we grabbed our drinks and snacks and headed towards our theater with high-ish hopes. We had both read the book, so I personally think we have a qualified perspective. Soon enough, the movie was over and… we still don’t know how to feel about it. We honestly walked out of the movie theater pretty quietly, and if you know us, that is almost never the case. So what went wrong? How can a book with so much detail, information, and plot points leave me so confused? Let’s dig in, spoilers ahead! Colleen Hoover has produced a couple of movies since her first production, It Ends with Us, which is a whole other story. I never really felt the need to watch her others because I have only read a few of her books, and honestly think I outgrew her. But I really did have high hopes for Verity (I read the book in one sitting if that tells you anything). I am not much of a thriller reader, but this book had grabbed me since page one, and I couldn’t help but finish it.Â
It follows a quiet author, Lowen, who has yet to make it big in the writing world. She has been offered to ghostwrite for another author, the infamous Verity Crawford. Verity has written thriller after thriller, filling the pages with her creepy, uncomfortable thoughts. The series has been left unfinished, in need of an author to finish the pages for Verity, who has recently been in a car wreck. Lowen accepts without knowing the extent of Verity’s car crash, and so the story begins. When comparing the book and the movie, I can’t help but feel left out of the loop. Even though I literally couldn’t be more in the loop, I read the book! The movie spends the entirety of the first hour building up suspense towards Verity’s crippled condition, being cared for day and night by a bedside nurse. Lowen lives inside Verity’s family home in order to read through Verity’s notes for her next novel, but begins to fall in love with Verity’s husband, Jeremy, under the same roof as Verity. Lowen feels like Verity is watching her, which is completely fair; she was creeping me out the whole time too. This constant back-and-forth of Lowen thinking Verity is faking her condition and Jeremy denying the fact makes up most of the movie. Lowen finds Verity’s manuscript and continues to freak herself out. There is just so much shoved in this one movie! But sadly, I feel as if there are too many details and plot lines between the movie and book to accurately describe it to you, so I will stick with the facts of the production itself. We spent so much time on Lowen and Jemery’s relationship and the suspense of Verity’s livelihood that the whole plot twist itself was missed. The last 10 minutes of the movie showcased the plot twist, but we never truly understood the depth of the twist itself. If I had never read the book, I would have so many questions. I did read the book, and I still have questions. We never truly understood why Verity wanted to get away from Jeremy so badly; we didn’t understand what actually happened to their daughter, what truly happened in Verity’s mind to make the decisions she made- the whole letter that Lowen found was supposed to explain all of it to us. Just as much time as we spent in suspense, we should have been given more information to understand what and who to believe.Â
I have noticed with Colleen Hoover’s books that she pushes so much information and so many twists into her books that it’s truly only believable when read or written. It seems almost impossible to successfully put and portray this many details into one movie; I think it could have been more successful as a limited series. I think we spend the whole time trying to wrap our
heads around the plot, so we have no time to become attached to the characters. We don’t learn why the characters do the things they do; we just are told what crazy things they did. I felt no connection towards Lowen or Verity, and the one chance they had to form that connection was cut off when they never finished the letter! I find it so interesting that Colleen Hoover’s movies just never form a full, understandable circle- and they are completely okay with it because they keep making movies. I wish she put as much thought into her movies as she puts into her plot twists.Â
What are your thoughts? Should Colleen Hoover continue to make movies, or just stick to writing?