Since the news broke that the esteemed Anne Hathaway will play Verity Crawford in the Michael Showalter–directed film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel Verity, one major question has lingered: Who will play struggling sexy writer Lowen Ashleigh? Well, we finally have an answer, and it’s the obvious choice: Dakota Johnson. Who else but the woman who breathed life into the Fifty Shades series could properly portray her?
In case you are lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the plot of this novel, it involves Lowen — who, again, is a sort of down-on-her-luck gal just trying to make it as a writer in New York City — entering into a torrid affair with businessman Jeremy Crawford, who has hired her to finish his semi-comatose wife’s manuscript (Verity Crawford is, of course, a best-selling author of thrillers). Josh Hartnett, fresh off his success as a hot dad with questionable intentions in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, has also signed on to the project as our Jeremy.
As someone who usually feels the need to read a book before watching its adaptation, I think the silver lining here is that probably no one feels that pressure in this particular case. Why suffer through sentences like “It’s as if she were an egg, cracked open and poured out, and all that’s left are the tiny fragments of hard shell?” Instead, we can head to the theater and enjoy what will surely be a passionately performed fever dream. Everyone wins!
