Breaking Down the Ending of ‘Verity’

What does the letter reveal about the manuscript?

Non-book readers may be surprised to learn that fans of Verity have divided themselves into teams. The new Colleen Hoover adaptation, directed by Michael Showalter and starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett is not a romance. Isn’t that what teams are for? Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, Team Conrad vs. Team Jeremy, Team Dean vs. Team Jess vs. Team Logan, and so on? Not this time, apparently. The psychological thriller ends with a twist that flips the reality so drastically and may not even be, itself, the truth. Let’s parse through the ending of Verity and the veracity, so to speak, of Team Manuscript vs. Team Letter.

Verity tells the story of a successful-ish author named Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) who takes a job ghostwriting for the rich and famous author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) after she has become incapacitated due to an accident and is unable to finish the last three books in her popular series.

In order to read through Verity’s notes and outlines, she briefly moves into her home with her husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) and their son Crew. While poking around, she finds a hidden and seemingly autobiographic manuscript with disturbing allegations. It details how Verity met her husband Jeremy and then started to feel distant from him after the birth of their twins. She describes resenting her children and feeling scared to be alone with them. Several years later, she confesses to attempting to kill both of them in a boating accident. Crew’s sister did, in fact, die. When that damaged her marriage further, Verity intended to drive her car into a tree. Hence her current, paralyzed state.

What Verity is describing, at least at the beginning of this manuscript, is postpartum psychosis—a very real mental health condition that is not very well understood and often underdiagnosed. If untreated, it can lead to potentially disastrous effects.

Instead of considering that Verity was unwell, Lowen jumped to the judgmental conclusion that the author was a monster, manipulator, and murderer who deserved to have her career, husband, and son stolen from her by Lowen. It’s ultimately not that surprising that she encouraged Jeremy to kill her. Lowen shows Jeremy the manuscript and he confronts Verity. She moves, revealing that her catatonic state was a lie, but then dies before she has the chance to explain herself.

But then, seven months later, Lowen finds a handwritten letter under the floorboards that changes everything.

In the letter, Verity claims that the manuscript was a writing exercise her editor Amanda Thomas gave her to get into a dark character’s mindset called “antagonistic journaling.” Basically, the assignment is to cast yourself as the villain in your own story and write the opposite, cruelest version of what you were feeling and experiencing in that moment. (It really feels like Colleen Hoover and/or Verity googled postpartum psychosis, said “eww, gross, who would do that,” and closed the tab without doing further research. But I digress.)

Verity’s letter goes on to say that Jeremy found the manuscript, accused her of killing their daughter, poisoned her, and then caused her car crash. She hid her recovery from her family and, according to the letter, intended to run away with Crew as soon as she was strong enough.

Alisha Wetherill

Is the letter “real,” or is the manuscript “real”? What’s the truth?

Now, is it possible that Verity’s handwritten letter was the lie? Totally! If Verity’s manuscript confession was exactly that, and she survived her suicide attempt, she could have whipped up that note to frame her husband and protect herself against being charged with murder for her daughter’s death. (For the third and final time, if the manuscript was the truth, and Jeremy hadn’t killed her, she could have gotten professional help for her mental health crisis and a very good lawyer.)

But she’s dead, and the movie is over, so we’ll never know. Unless Colleen Hoover writes a sequel, there is no definitive answer to what Verity’s truth actually is.

If the movie hadn’t ended soon after Lowen found the letter, she could have gotten the handwriting analyzed. She could have asked Amanda Thomas of Hachette Books, who is also her editor, if she really suggested “antagonistic journaling” as an exercise. But she probably won’t, because it might raise suspicions about Verity’s mysterious death. Lowen’s best bet is to keep her head down and hope her new husband doesn’t find a reason to kill her next. What a happy ending!

There are holes in both theories, to be fair. If the manuscript was meant to be “opposite day” or whatever, why are the details about Verity and Jeremy’s meet-cute accurate? Why would an intelligent and successful writer be so careless as to leave what is, in essence, a suicide note and a murder confession, out in the open? On the other hand, if the letter is fake, why did it involve a witness? Amanda, come through! And if Jeremy had nothing to hide, why did he kill Verity before letting her explain herself? Why didn’t he take the manuscript to the police?

Alisha Wetherill

What does Hot Ones have to do with anything?

At the very end of the movie, after Lowen has driven into the uncertain sunset with Jeremy and Crew, we see one last bit of Verity’s Hot Ones interview. Throughout the film, Lowen researched some of Verity’s press appearances in addition to reading her books and secret manuscript/antagonistic journal. This is the only opportunity we get to see the “real” Verity…but then again, not really! Every interview is a little bit of a performance, even Hot Ones.

In the interview, she tells Sean Evans that one of her favorite things about writing is finding ways to manipulate the truth. That…doesn’t really clarify anything, though. So she likes to lie in her fiction writing. And? We don’t know which piece of writing is fiction, the letter or the manuscript. All writers lie. All artists lie. Whether they’re being deceptive in their personal lives should be a separate issue…shouldn’t it?