Rarely have I seen a thriller so passively absurd and tedious that I’d say it were an unfinished draft, if not for being based on a published novel. Here is a film about covered-up murder, dark confessions, steamy affairs, and book writing, with none of it packing a punch in its lukewarm stew of sex and violence. It doesn’t help that this is a screenplay in which Dakota Johnson refers to her complexion as, and I quote, “resting bored face.” My face was certainly on the same level.

Johnson plays the struggling author Lowen Ashleigh, eager to find a more lucrative contract than one that has her performing readings to small crowds in bookstores. She lands the dream job of completing the novels of Verity Crawford, a best-selling author played by Anne Hathaway. Crawford’s books are apparently about evil people committing murder, but we rarely hear much about the plots or characters. We don’t hear much about Ashleigh’s writing either. The film seems uninterested in writing and would rather zoom quickly to salivating over and seducing Verity’s husband, Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett.

Jeremy hired Lowen because Verity can’t finish her books now that she’s paralyzed after a car crash. He says the only way to make the next book accurate is for Lowen to come stay at their home and look through Verity’s notes. Red flags should be shooting up about this incredibly profitable gig that requires Lowen to stay in the house of people she doesn’t know that well. But since her books aren’t selling and she’s apparently being evicted, it’s off to Jeremy’s snowy Vermont home to write some thrillers. As it turns out, there’s more to Verity than Lowen realizes when she uncovers a secret manuscript confessing how much she despises her marriage. Even creepier, Lowen believes Verity isn’t really paralyzed, as she starts noticing her turning her head or walking around when nobody else is looking.

There are plenty of angles to explore with this scenario, and yet Verity seems to squander any potential to be evoked from such a narrative. Jeremy has a son, Crew, who was traumatized by the death of her sister, but his inner thoughts rarely come out, and the most lively conversation we hear between him and Lowen is one about kid jokes. Verity’s writing could stir up Lowen’s imagination, but the scenes of her reading primarily consist of printed words sliding across the screen. Additional characters like Lowen’s agent, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, and Verity’s nurse, played by Irina Dvorovenko, add nothing to the story either. This movie is based on a novel by Colleen Hoover, and while I haven’t read it, I want to believe it explores these wasted elements better.

Maybe the strangest aspect of this film is that it’s directed by Michael Showalter, who has directed some fairly funny films such as The Big Sick. Verity also has some amusing moments, but they don’t seem to be intentional. A signifier of being Jeremy’s lover comes in the form of teeth marks on the bedframe during orgasm. I’m sure such an inclusion was meant to be sexy, but it just doesn’t work, generating more giggles than blushes.

The sex scenes themselves are nothing to write home about, considering how most of them are reduced to montages, needle drops, and narration. There’s a particularly sexy moment where Verity and Jeremy have sex in the bathroom, but the film never lets us enjoy this moment, as the scene is spoken over by Verity’s autobiography. She adds such important details as being completely naked on the bathroom sink while Jeremy has sex with her, just in case you missed that detail in the scene you are currently watching. There’s never a moment to appreciate any of the erotic allure or how it intersects with the darkness of an affair. Two of the most stylish scenes in the film feature Lowen masturbating in the bath and her hallucination of making out with Jeremy in the same room as Verity. Alone, these scenes might’ve been brilliant, but they’re shoved together and diced up in the editing, becoming less appealing with every cut.

Equally lackluster are the psychological elements, which never have a moment to fester properly. Lowen’s fears of Verity could take many forms, but the movie settles on mildly spooky dreams and almost laughable jump scares in Verity’s untrustworthy home. This lack of effectiveness makes the final act a series of twists that spill out without much shock. By the time the film gets around to its final twist, I audibly scoffed at how implausible it comes off. Scenes like that feel more like twists for the sake of twists than genuine surprises in the story.

Verity is a psychological erotic thriller that isn’t thoughtful enough to be psychological, sexy enough to be erotic, or intriguing enough to be a thriller. I’m sure many will dismiss the film for Dakota Johnson’s dull performance, but much like Madame Web, I can’t blame her for not wanting to put her best foot forward with a film like this. If this movie isn’t interested in exploring the nature of writing, the dark desires of affairs, the pains of motherhood, and the terrifying motivations for deception, why should she be interested either? Why should anybody be interested? This is a picture with all the ingredients for a psychological erotic thriller, but it forgot to turn the stove on to bake it.

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