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[0:00] Jesse McAnally: Here you are. I was hired to help Verity write. She was a master at manipulating truth. Verity. She was standing right there. She can't walk. This is my confession. Bloody and completely exposed. And a little bit terrifying. Verity. Rated R. Only in theaters October 2nd.

[0:30] Jesse McAnally: Hello and welcome to a very special, I don't want to say spinoff, but new series of Theater in the D, but I guess it's Film in the D. I am joined by my co-host in life and favorite person on the planet, Miranda Moffat.

[0:46] Miranda Moffat: Hello, everyone.

[0:47] Jesse McAnally: And this will be a new recurring segment because I think I've become official. People want to hear my opinions on films, which is interesting. And our first foray into this that will be posted is the film Verity. Miranda, what is Verity about?

[1:04] Miranda Moffat: Verity is generally well, I mean, it's based on a book by Colleen Hoover. It is generally about a writer. Her name is Loan Ashley, and she is hired to ghostwrite for Verity Crawford, who is in this universe, a very popular writer in the horror genre.

[1:26] Jesse McAnally: The female Stephen King, almost.

[1:29] Miranda Moffat: Yes. She is essentially invited by Verity's husband to come to their home in Vermont, in rural Vermont, and to live there as she goes through Verity's notes and basically attempts to ghostwrite the next series of her novels because Verity was in a car accident and is now unable to do so. And when she arrives at the home, there are some things about Verity's condition that she is not expecting. And it all kind of winds into this very twisted tale of like, what is the truth of what is happening? And that's basically the whole gist of the movie is like, what is the truth?

[2:10] Jesse McAnally: I agree. And I also really appreciate how you avoided spoilers. I think we are going to do our best to avoid spoiling the entire film because this is a film that is relying on twists and turns to make its story go across. And I think that's really effective. Now, this film is directed by Michael Showalter, who you might know as one of the writers of Wet Hot American Summer, the director of The Big Sick, and really, I think, just like a pretty good director that has a great tune with timing. It is written by, well, adapted from Colleen Hoover's original book by Nick Antosca, who I did not know when I saw this, wrote several episodes of the TV show Hannibal, including the series finale. And he's done a lot of more recent stuff like the Cape Fear TV show, The Act. But really, you know, that's my stuff. Um, not to dive too much into this. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

[3:16] Miranda Moffat: You and I were making comparisons afterwards to Paul Feig's recent dives into thrillers with A Simple Favor and The Housemaid. And I do not like either of those movies. I think A Simple Favor is a really good script destroyed by the direction, and The Housemaid, I think, was just badly thought out, badly cast. This feels like a film that knows what it is and is very confident about what it's trying to be.

[3:51] Jesse McAnally: I agree. And the fact that both Dakota Johnson, I almost said Dakota Fanning, Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway were both producing and executive producing it, like, tells me basically that this was essentially a passion project for them. Or at least like a foray for them into the producing world in a project that they were actually intrinsically interested in. And you can feel that. I think the thing that I appreciated the most about this movie was the aesthetic quality and the vibe it creates. Like, it's not a Halloween movie by any measure. I think most of it takes place, in fact, in wintertime. But it has a very, like, very hollow, very, like, very structural aesthetic to it. Like, it uses the architecture of the homes and, like, the city and the landscapes to set the scene, which I appreciated. Like, it does create a creepy vibe.

[5:06] Miranda Moffat: And with that, I always almost described it as a stage play aesthetic, because we're kind of trapped in one house for, I want to say, 75% of the story. And with all the kind words I have to say about that, and there are several, specifically about the performances from Josh Hartnett and Anne Hathaway, I just feel like this is a director trying to, similar to, like, David Fincher with Gone Girl, trying to take what is essentially a trashy airport book, as the film itself describes its content, and elevate it a bit. Very similar to what David Fincher did with Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. And the Gone Girl comparisons come out, especially because we have Anne Hathaway narrating 90% of her screen time, kind of like a drunk history.

[5:48] Jesse McAnally: A little bit. And that kind of surprised me. I expected that Anne Hathaway would be more of the, you know, singular lead, just based off of the promotional materials. But it's definitely led, I would say, by Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. And Anne Hathaway is more of, like, in the voiceover role, and you get most of her story, like, through, like, what do you call those? Flashback scenes. Like, that is the bulk of her role in this movie. But it's still, like, a very, you very rarely see her character in present day.

[6:24] Miranda Moffat: Yeah. And I think that's an effective narrative tool. I really like where we have a very grounded, we are locked into a point of view character. I enjoy that in film. And I felt that it was used very smart with the way that we have these two competing writers, so to say. I'm like, it is all about who holds the pen and who's telling the story at what point. And I thought that was an interesting point of view to have. You have not seen This Ends With Us, the other big Colleen Hoover film that is currently still going through lawsuits several years later. That film was not good. That film, I don't know nothing about Justin Baldoni, but it seems like he doesn't know how to direct a film very well.

Michael Showalter is someone I have always kept an eye on. And I know a lot of the attention for The Big Sick went to Kumail Nanjiani and his wife. But I really think it's a really well directed, impersonable film. And I think that this is going to be a camp classic. And I don't want to spoil too much as to why it's so campy. But this is an intentionally campy with very broad jokes in it, but also takes the darkness and the scares very seriously with it.

[7:50] Jesse McAnally: It really is doing the things that A Simple Favor thought it was doing. Yeah, it is. It is a very effective, both an effective thriller and also an effective, not necessarily like a scary movie, but it rides that line, I think, pretty well. And that is definitely something I enjoyed about it. It is something where like, you, it makes you really uncomfortable, like in a good way, though. Like, I really, I really did not ever know what was going to happen next. I mean, like, obviously, it's, it's well made in the sense that you can follow the threads that they are laying. And you can see where things are going, like nothing comes as necessarily a surprise. But it still felt very heightened. There were a lot of moments that felt very uncomfortable. But there were also a lot of moments where people were like, openly like, No, don't do that. Don't go there. A very vocal audience. Why would you do that? Like, you know, it was very, I thought it was very compelling.

[9:00] Miranda Moffat: Now for negatives, because there are a few. Anne Hathaway is a very earnest actor who is going to do the work and put her all into it and have a take on the character. It's I know she didn't go to Juilliard, but she has a very Juilliard kind of I'm going to do the work. Where Dakota Johnson is an actor who feels like she's acting ironically, not mean, like she thinks that she is like one step beyond the movie. It works really well for the Fifty Shades movies where she's kind of rolling her eyes at everything going on. And I think it's just become a shtick that has wore off on me, especially in things like Madame Web, where it is just very odd, obvious that she has contempt for the material that she's performing.

And just kind of everything feels like it's being done with an eye roll. And it bleeds into this. And it's not always the case, but it is often the case. And you put these two very different acting styles next to each other. It begs comparison. And I, I wonder what it would have been like with a different performer outside of Dakota Johnson in this lead.

[10:59] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I think there were some, yeah, some moments that were just kind of not well acted or were awkward or like a little bit too over the top. And that was like some of the bits that were uncomfortable, but not in a good way. Or it's just like, oh, we couldn't have gotten like another, another try on that one on that take. I mean, like, who am I to talk? But yeah, there were definitely some moments that I think could have been a little bit better performed. And yes, the differences in the general acting style, which I think like it made a good, it made for like good comparisons. But it definitely, yeah, there was definitely some incongruent acting, if that's a good way to put it.

[11:47] Miranda Moffat: Yeah, I feel like Dakota Johnson, has she been great in anything like truly, truly great? I don't know. Have you seen the remake of Suspiria?

[11:56] Jesse McAnally: I have. Yes.

[11:57] Miranda Moffat: Is she good in that?

[11:58] Jesse McAnally: She's not like the best part of that. But she's not doing the ironic thing that was still fairly early in her career. I think now that she's like become a star that is like part of it. And some people claim that Robert Pattinson is doing that. But Robert Pattinson takes really big swings because of that. And I don't think Robert Pattinson ever does anything ironically. He didn't even do Edward Cullen, ironically. Let's be so real. He is so serious about everything he does in the best way.

[11:38] Jesse McAnally: Even Anne Hathaway in this movie is taking some wild swings. She has gravitas when across from Sean Evans of Hot Ones and is taking those moments seriously. How did you feel about those real-life podcasters, Sean Evans and the Call Her Daddy one lady? I don't know. For me, it's kind of, it is what it is. It's always weird to see popular media in something where it's like being incorporated as if this is real life, which I guess is what they're going for is to create a sense of reality. It's fine for me. I think when we left the theater, you were like, that's the best movie I've ever seen that ended with a scene from Hot Ones. I was like, yeah, probably. It's probably the best one you're ever gonna get.

Yeah. Without going into spoilers, there is a twist, I want to say in the last three minutes of this movie, that kind of erases a lot of goodwill that the film has bought for me personally. And this is a personal taste thing, where I'm like, I'm glad we didn't go in the obvious direction. And then they did. They did. Yeah. And it was frustrating until and I, this is speculation. I have no proof of this. I feel like there was a directorial last minute note, where they add just a bit of ambiguity in the last, I want to say 10 seconds of the film, where it's like, oh, no, you want me back. So the ending is gonna be divisive. And it'll either really piss you off or really win you back. I feel like you've got both sides that because I really liked that and you did not.

[13:15] Unknown speaker: I really hate that. But that's just me being weird. I am a seriously unwhimsical bitch when it comes to movies where I'm just like, I just I don't want you to leave it open-ended. I don't want you to give me options. I just want you to tell me exactly what happened and exactly what the story was. And I don't want to have to guess about it. And I don't want to have to speculate about it. Like I just want you to tell me what it is. And that's just, that's just a personal preference that I recognize that most people don't have. You could have walked down the hall and watched Avengers Endgame. You could everything's pretty straightforward there if you wanted that. Let's, let's not. Let's not say that my taste is a cut and dry Avengers Endgame movie because they can't even get their retconning stuff right now all those extra scenes, so they can't even get their own story straight.

So it's not like that. It's just, I don't know, I hate the, a little bit of ambiguity is fine. I think in some scenarios, it works really well to have a sort of, you know, pick your own adventure in your mind type deal. In these cases, when it's like a very last minute twist, I'm like, don't just you, you can't tell a whole story. And then be like, well, actually, maybe not. Like, I just just tell me the damn story.

[14:36] Jesse McAnally: I appreciated it as trying to see a director make sense of this twist in his own way, because it feels, we talked about Saltburn, which has a twist as well, which I think. But that's one that you kind of see coming the whole time. Well, the thing is, I think with Saltburn, I thought that was the movie you were making, and you're telling me it's a twist. Here, at least it actually is a twist. Well, yes, there are actually like, there are expected twists and unexpected twists on top of it, but they, I don't know, it kind of, I agree with what you said before, where it's like, you appreciated that it didn't go that direction. And then at the very last second, it was like, oh, no, actually, we're gonna do that.

That's what I was like, why? Um, yeah, kind of like What Lies Beneath, a film where I came up with a much better twist than the movie did. And I was just sitting there angry that it didn't have the twist I wanted. It felt very similar to that. And I also really like What Lies Beneath as well. As far as this film, I don't think it's going to, I don't think I see, we don't have critics reviews now. So, I can't really judge what the public thinks about this yet. We are the ones deciding what the world thinks about this.

[15:50] Unknown speaker: I think that your take is correct. I think that it will be divisive. But I think that people that are already like, established fans of Colleen Hoover's books, people who are already fans of, like, thrillers and scary movies and that kind of vibe are going to enjoy it either way, even if the ending may be, like you said, kind of divisive. When we were walking out of the theater, there was a lot of young women that were like, oh, I want to reread the book and compare now. And I'd be interested to see what the differences are and how it's told. Because I feel like this might be a Dracula kind of, or a Carrie where it's like a collection of letters kind of narrative. And those are notoriously hard to adapt.

I'm very curious as to what the critics will think, because I think I'm thinking it's going to lean positive. I tend to lean positive about it. It's just it has some really hardcore structural and performance flaws that are interesting. And things that I think they were working with thematically that I'm not sure all line up. And tonally, like, I feel Michael Showalter's comedic senses really rise to the top where I was laughing at lines that I don't think were meant to have a laugh.

[17:09] Jesse McAnally: I think they were. I think there were moments that are intended to bring the levity that you need in a story that is kind of bogged down by, like, a darkness, I think. But the moments that were funny were really funny. Like, what I'm talking about specifically is the first moment. And this is not a spoiler. This happens, like, within the first 10 minutes of the film. There's a very violent death. And our two leads Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett are just kind of trauma bonding over it. And he's like, I had to pull my daughter out of the river. And she just jumps in, my mom died a week ago. And I laughed really hard.

[17:51] Unknown speaker: That's true. There are some moments where you're not sure if it's bad acting or if it was, like, intended to be, like, so weird that it's funny. It fell directly out of Wet Hot American Summer. Like, but no one else laughed at the theater, but I very much did.

[18:06] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, that's what I meant when I said, like, there were some moments that acting wise was just like, is this an intentional choice? Like, was this something that you were directed to do? Or is this just being, you know, I don't know, strange about the scene? Um, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I think if I'm giving this a cheese rating,

[18:25] Unknown speaker: Oh, boy.

[18:26] Jesse McAnally: I'm giving this, you know, a really buttery brie. You know, like, I think Colleen Hoover just in general doesn't usually suit my taste. But this fits right into a lot of like, the things that line up for me. I don't think I'll like much of what else are adapted. But maybe I maybe she'll be like Nicholas Sparks, where we watch all of her adaptations and have the very different opinions and compare the themes.

[18:52] Unknown speaker: The thing is, I have not, I have not read any of Colleen Hoover's books. And the only adaptation in my understanding that I have seen is this one. So, I, it just seems like to me, based on the adaptations that her books, just very widely, like, which is good. It's good to have some, some diversity in the things that you're covering, whereas, like, Nicholas Sparks is very much like the same kind of formula over and over and over and over again, in different ways of somehow managing to kill your main male character in the last five minutes in a way that doesn't make sense. So, I am interested to see what other books get adapted and what the general vibes are, because this one was not what I was expecting, just based on the other things that have been made from her novels. So, I'll be interested to see.

[19:41] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. And what about your cheese rating?

[19:44] Unknown speaker: Um, I feel like it deserves like an alcoholic type of, type of cheese, like maybe like a Merlot, Merlot infused type of cheese. I feel like that exists.

[19:58] Jesse McAnally: You know what, I'm following you here.

[20:01] Unknown speaker: What would, what would that be called? Let's, let's, let's see. We're, we're doing our big research.

[20:07] Jesse McAnally: Um.

[20:08] Unknown speaker: Merlot soaked cheese is an artisan cow's milk cheese. So, something, something. Merlot Bellavitano is a famous one.

[20:16] Jesse McAnally: We'll go with that. I'll say that then. I do feel like Anne Hathaway's character would just be drinking Merlot constantly.

[20:23] Unknown speaker: That's what I mean. It's, it definitely has that, that vibe. It's like a very, it's like, um, at the base of it, it's like a regular, like popular, widely appreciated cheese. And then you kind of infuse the Merlot in it to make it a little bit more of a twisted adult kind of experience. And it is rated R, like it, you know.

[20:43] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. It's steamy. Like there, there, there are some moments where you feel like right out of the Fifty Shades of Grey series.

[20:51] Unknown speaker: Yes, they do. That's kind of, I was like, is Dakota Johnson just doing like a mix of, this is like a mix of Fifty Shades of Grey and like Suspiria to me. Like, it's those two things combined. I'm like, did they just, did she just decide this because it was like in the same vein of things she'd done? I don't know.

[21:09] Jesse McAnally: Okay, I just want to imagine this film. I'm gonna,

[21:12] Unknown speaker: Jennifer Lawrence opposed to Dakota Johnson. I think it goes up a half star for me.

[21:18] Jesse McAnally: I think that would be a very interesting, very interesting take.

[21:23] Unknown speaker: I just feel like Dakota Johnson and Hathaway are too much of mirrors. And I felt this way about The Housemaid, like Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried are just too much of mirrors of each other.

[21:34] Jesse McAnally: I mean, they're meant, that's the intention.

[21:36] Unknown speaker: I don't, make it, make it different. Because there's just every woman in this is a brunette.

[21:43] Jesse McAnally: Every single one. A little skinny brunette.

[21:46] Unknown speaker: Yeah, I think the last thing I will say about this is that, and hopefully this is not too much of a spoiler, but watching this movie is interesting, especially if you're somebody who has been following like, the Lindsay Clancy case, and the sort of like, things that, the opinions that society at large has had about women and their relationships to their careers and their children, and their obligations as mothers. Like, watching this with the context of that whole thing going on, that whole circus existing is interesting. It's interesting.

[22:18] Jesse McAnally: I agree. There is some upsetting imagery. And we're not, like, parents or anything, but it even upset me. And I don't get upset by movies that much. So, enter cautiously.

[22:32] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[22:33] Jesse McAnally: And that's all for this week. And let us know if you like this, because we're gonna keep doing it, whether you like it or not. So actually don't tell us because we don't care. Only tell us if it's good, you know?

[22:44] Unknown speaker: We're gonna do it anyway.

[22:45] Jesse McAnally: We'll see you next time.