Verity review: Dakota Johnson leaves teethmarks in Fifty Shades erotic thriller territory

The critical verdict on Verity is in, and it has left teeth marks. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw writes that Dakota Johnson "leaves teethmarks" as she goes back into "Fifty Shades ingenue-cute territory" in Michael Showalter's adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 2018 novel, which opens in the US and UK on October 2. Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer hired to ghostwrite the next book in a bestselling series after its author, Verity Crawford, is incapacitated.

Anne Hathaway plays Crawford, and Josh Hartnett plays her husband Jeremy, who takes an interest in Lowen. The setup delivers "a knowingly trashy thriller whose outrageousness eventually overwhelms its logic," according to Screen Daily. That review, by Wendy Ide, argues that Johnson and Hathaway "struggle to lift flimsy Colleen Hoover adaptation," and that Showalter's film "ends up feeling like a flimsy pastiche of the erotic thrillers of yesteryear."

Not every critic agreed. Time Out's Larushka Ivan-Zadeh gave the film three stars, praising Johnson's return to the sensual thriller style and Showalter's ability to balance dark subject matter with a playful, self-aware tone. The Boston Globe's Odie Henderson called it "shockingly watchable," with Hathaway's performance as the manipulative Verity standing out.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 43% of 53 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.2/10. Metacritic assigned a score of 43 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. The film had its world premiere at the Curzon Mayfair Cinema in London on September 24, and will be released by Amazon MGM Studios in the United States and Canada, with Sony Pictures Releasing International handling international distribution.

It is projected to gross around $30-35 million in its opening weekend, competing against Digger. Hathaway, who also served as a producer, said at the New York premiere that it was crucial to include "unexpected, sexy, psychological" scenes. Hartnett revealed that an intimacy coordinator "played a big part" in filming the steamy scenes, which he said were "really funny" due to the technical details in Hoover's writing.

The film is the fourth Hoover novel brought to the big screen, following 2024's It Ends With Us, which grossed $351 million worldwide. Screen Daily notes that "star power and a critic-proof premise should make Verity a robust alternative to Digger and other serious Oscar fare." Whether audiences embrace the film as the "really enjoyable erotic mystery-thriller" Bradshaw says the nation is crying out for remains to be seen.