How Verity Author Colleen Hoover Feels About The Anne Hathaway Movie

Amazon MGM Studios

"Verity" is the latest film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel and the rare one that hasn't caused a huge scandal and lawsuit (so far!). It's also on its way to becoming a box office hit, with "Verity" all but assuring there will be more Hoover adaptations in the future. 

The film comes from director Michael Showalter, a versatile storyteller who strikes a tone closer to that of "Gone Girl" here than his previous work on comedies like "The Big Sick" or the biographical "The Eyes of Tammy Faye." Dakota Johnson stars as Lowen, a ghostwriter for the best-selling author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway, doing her best Amy Elliott Dunne) who uncovers some notes from Verity that may reveal a murderous conspiracy. The result is a movie where beautiful people whisper at each other, have passionate sex, snarl menacingly, and do a bit of murder, all while Johnson reads aloud from a manuscript. 

Overall, it seems "Verity" is connecting with audiences. As for critics? Well, they've been less flattering towards it. Indeed, in her review, /Film's Nina Starner described "Verity" as "barely a movie," adding that it commits the ultimate sin of being "boring." But how does Hoover feel about the film? 

As the author told E! News:

"It did give me food for thought. I thought a certain way for so long after writing the book, that seeing the movie and seeing how Michael dove into every point of view, I started to find myself feeling sorry for the character I thought was more evil in the book."

"Not that the movie shifts you in one direction or another, it was just really fun seeing everyone's opinions of the truth," she added. "I've been all over the place now." 

We'll unpack that shortly, but beware: SPOILERS for "Verity" ahead.

Amazon MGM Studios

On the whole, "Verity" the movie is largely the same as Colleen Hoover's novel when it comes to its themes of truth and manipulation, with both the film and book following Lowen as she slowly unravels the mystery of Verity's past. That being said, the movie does make some notable changes to its source material, not the least of which is having Verity appear on First We Feast's massively popular YouTube interview series "Hot Ones."

In terms of the ending, both the book and movie versions of "Verity" leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Verity did, in fact, attempt to kill her kids before trying to die by suicide (like her notes claim), although Hoover has said that she believes Verity's manuscript was truthful. Even so, director Michael Showalter told E! News that the film nearly almost had a different conclusion:

"There were different ways that we tried ending the movie where Lowen's character winds up. It's really interesting screening the movie. You really get to figure out how the audience wants it to end. It was really interesting what we learned through that process."

Still, when it came to the final cut of the movie, Showalter ultimately elected to keep the ambiguity of the original novel intact. As he sees it, though, there are three different versions of "Verity," one for each of the story's main characters. "I found myself not taking sides," he explained. "I found myself wanting to honor each individual of our performers' realities, to honor that in the filmmaking, so that we weren't tipping the hat one way or the other."

"Verity" is currently playing in theaters.