Verity review – Dakota Johnson leaves teethmarks as she goes back to Fifty Shades erotic thriller territory

Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett co-star in this unconvincing mystery about a struggling writer who is asked to ghostwrite for a bestselling authorThe nation is crying out for a really enjoyable erotic mystery-thriller, a taste potentially at least as strong as the cosy-crime fetish currently dominating our every waking moment. The success of Paul Feig’s naughty-but-not-nice movie The Housemaid proves it. We are thirsting for a sexy encounter with a dishy yet maybe problematic nice-guy husband; we are pining for a damaged and dangerous beautiful wife; we are longing to identify with a vulnerable yet gutsy young person who finds herself in the middle of their creepy scenario and we are yearning to spend some time in a secluded luxury lakeside villa of gigantic modernist proportions down whose night-time corridors we can tremblingly tiptoe. So here is a drama, adapted by screenwriter Nick Antosca from the novel by Colleen Hoover, in which someone has such excitingly transgressive sex that they leave teeth marks on the headboard. During this film, audiences may be leaving teeth marks in the seatback in front of them. Or the back of someone’s head. But not in a good way.Dakota Johnson …

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