'Verity': Not enough trashy fun

\There’s nothing wrong with good, trashy fun. That’s what I hoped to get from Verity, the fourth big-screen adaptation of a novel by the widely read Colleen Hoover. After some initial optimism, my hopes steadily dissolved. A cast composed of Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett seemed ready to deliver a story that makes room for sexual attraction, deception and blurred identity lines. In her fifth movie this year, Hathaway portrays Verity Crawford, a popular author whose stories are told from the villain’s point of view. Johnson plays a struggling novelist who’s chosen to finish one of Verity’s books after an automobile accident leaves the author unable to walk or talk. Hartnett plays Verity’s husband, Jeremy, a charming enough fellow who develops a relationship with Johnson’s Lowen after she moves into the couple’s sleek Vermont home. Research, you know. We also meet Crew (Brady Wagner), the eight-year-old surviving Crawford twin. His sister Harper (Sienna Kulovitz)…