Verity

“Hoover has filled many of those airport bookstores that Lowen scoffs at. This one ought to have stayed there, and never crossed the desks of Hathaway, Johnson or Hartnett.”

“It's befitting that Alejandro Inarritu's satirical love letter to the arts is headlined by Tom Cruise, a movie star ready to even ride his bike off a cliff in service of the story. That's probably why Tom Cruise has realized now that just defying gravity won't suffice as an artist. He needs to keep his ear to the ground and act in his best capacity before the world as we know it goes down in flames.”

“One may argue that the film is merely adapting what’s written in the book and that’s fair. But what may have worked as a page-turning device in the novel becomes increasingly predictable onscreen. An adaptation needs to take a different approach to keep viewers hooked, especially when it comes to what it chooses to reveal and when. And that pretty much messes up this story.”

“VERITY suffers due to its disturbing treatment, unconvincing finale and ambiguous ending. The proceedings get increasingly disturbing, and a few sequences are certainly not for the faint-hearted, likely to appeal only to a niche section of the multiplex audience.”

“Verity has all the ingredients of a deliciously twisted psychological thriller, but Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel loses much of its bite in its film adaptation. Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett struggle to create the required unease, while Anne Hathaway brings the intrigue. Unfortunately, Verity never quite gets under your skin.”

“The psychological density of the story is presented with a direct outcome in scenes that only focus on the action of events while forgetting to shape the inner lives of characters and their relationships. What's corny becomes cornier; Verity gets very tedious.”