“Verity”: Hollywood’s Obsession With Colleen Hoover is Getting Boring

It seems like the modern cinema menu can only offer three meal options: a remake, a sequel, or a Colleen Hoover adaptation. Let’s take a look at my latest headache, Verity. 

I think we can all agree on one thing: the genre “bad films for women” has always been a lucrative one. 

And for the most part, I get it: sometimes we need something to disconnect the mind, and those films are excellent for that purpose. So I don’t judge people for enjoying this type of project once in a while. When done by someone competent, a dumb romance can be a lot of fun. 

But the rise of “BookTok” has brought forward the most eye-rolling crossovers of the 2020s: taking a popular “bad book for women” and turning it into a “bad film for women.” I know this is not something exclusive to this decade, but social media has made the phenomenon louder and way more annoying than it has any right to be. And its chosen queen seems to be Colleen Hoover.

The Colleen Hoover Multiverse

Due to their online popularity, Hoover’s novels have become the go-to options for a Hollywood drained of creativity. The first of her books adapted to the big screen was It Ends With Us, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, in 2024. Even though the film had excellent box office numbers, it’s now mostly remembered for the legal conflict between the two lead actors, which stained Hoover’s public image.

Since then, two other films have been released in theaters: Regretting You in 2025 and Reminders of Him in March of this year. While not as popular as It Ends With Us, both grossed around $90,000,000 at the global box office. 

Hollywood took note and prepared a foolproof plan: adapting one of Hoover’s most popular novels, with a cast including some of the most “fashionable” faces of the moment. That’s how we get to Verity, starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett. 

What is Verity About?

Writer Lowen Ashleigh is hired as a ghostwriter for renowned thriller author Verity Crawford. The circumstances are quite mysterious: Verity seems to have been left in a catatonic state after a nearly fatal car accident, but the fact has been hidden from the public to prevent them from thinking her famous book series is over. It’s now Lowen’s job to finish it. 

Verity’s husband invites her to stay with him and his son to review all the author’s papers and notes, and make a plan for the rest of the series. But the stay will tangle Lowen in a web of turbulent family mysteries. 

Wattpad Destroyed A Generation 

From the get-go, Verity is not the type of film I would expect much from quality-wise: as long as it was entertaining, it was enough for me. However, out of all the Colleen Hoover adaptations I’ve had the bad luck of watching, this might be the worst. 

As usual, the problems start with the script. Verity tries to be a mix of thriller, romance, and erotic film, but the fluctuations of tone throughout the runtime are striking: one minute the protagonist is talking about her dead mother, and the next she is plotting a murder. 

The dialogue is painful to listen to. I’m afraid this is what fanfiction has done to writing. It’s impossible to take anyone seriously when the characters speak like they were written by a 13-year-old. Dialogue is one of the main things I complain about on the regular while watching movies, but this was truly embarrassing. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey-level embarrassing; it screamed Wattpad in every scene. 

I would also like to point out how uncomfortable and random the “sexy” scenes are in this film. The protagonist wants to solve a mystery, but once every couple of minutes she gets horny, so we are treated to some nudity, self-pleasuring, and adultery. Because why not?

Sydney Sweeney Did It Better

From the first minutes you already know what will happen: a troubled husband hires the protagonist, and she starts to get attracted to him (and to his house and lavish lifestyle), so she decides to sleep with him and try to take the wife’s place. But then there is a “surprise dark twist” you never saw coming. 

A bit like The Housemaid, another bad film for women adapted from a novel that came out this year. One of the scenes where Lowen wears one of Verity’s dresses to go on a date with her husband happens in that movie as well. These modern authors are so original! To be fair, at least The Housemaid was entertaining. 

The musical score is also distractingly bad. I haven’t been this annoyed by a movie’s soundtrack since Midnight in Paris. As the film is incapable of creating tension and atmosphere most of the time, it relies on over-dramatic music to let you know how you “should be feeling.” I felt like I was watching a 2000s Mexican soap opera most of the time.

Oh, and let’s not forget the “meta references.” Verity goes to podcasts like Call Her Daddy or Hot Ones because that is really cool. 

Someone Could Use an Acting Coach

There are bad movies that manage to survive because the actors are amazing at their job, but this is not one of those. The performances are terrible; even worse than I expected. 

Dakota Johnson has never been the most versatile actress, but this is one of her worst performances ever. Her work in Verity makes what she did in Madame Web look Oscar-worthy. Her character discovering a murder, being an accomplice to another, and finding out that maybe she married a psychopath while never changing her expression (not once!) has to be some sort of record. I think she even beat Zendaya this time. 

Anne Hathaway is not around all that much; we see her through flashbacks when Lowen reads Verity’s autobiography, but she has little direct participation in the main storyline. She is not as terrible as Dakota by any means, but I’ve seen her so much this year that I find her insufferable. Starring in five bad movies in just one year may also be a record.

Josh Hartnett is the only one in the cast that delivers a somewhat believable performance. The lousy script holds him back, but he has the range to play two-faced characters, as he showed in Trap in 2024. Someone should get the guy a proper script. 

Reception & Box Office

Despite being terrible, Verity is doing great. It has been in theaters for only a week, and its global box office already amounts to over $70,000,000 against a budget of $40,000,000. 

We should remember that It Ends With Us, Hoover’s most successful adaptation, made almost $350,000,000 during its theater run. Looking back, it was a better film than Verity overall, but in cases like this, quality does not matter all that much. I wouldn’t go as far as saying the new film will reach the same numbers, but it’s not impossible. 

Why would anyone care to make a good movie when trash sells better? That is the question. But looking on the bright side, that was the last Colleen Hoover adaptation of the year. So at least we don’t have to see any more of her (or Anne Hathaway or Dakota Johnson) for the remainder of 2026. 

Thank God.