Verity

In a year of good movies, I wondered if this would be a great one. I am a sucker for mysteries and the cast is solid with a good director, so I had hopes for continuing the strong end of the year run here (having just come off great ones like The History of Concrete, Hope, and then some other strong ones).

This whelmed me. It was fine. Not terribly graphic. Not terribly suspenseful. But interesting enough and well-acted and decently paced. Present and past timelines collide in an idyllic New Hampshire writer's home. I felt quite cozy alongside the periodic jolts of thrill.

This was a suspense and mystery (erotic thriller genre per the book) so I don't want to give away any major plot points. I’ll simply say I could not fully follow the logic of motivations. And part of that is the point -- truth is subjective and can be manipulated! And I generally do not enjoy when my art tells me what to do or think or feel. But the seemingly questionable logic here (vs. absurd, surreal, etc.) rubbed me the wrong way when all was said and done.

Perhaps I'm simply too stupid for a full appreciation of the story here (and I haven't read the book, but I did have an inclination given "what was potentially lost in translation?" for this re-telling).

I recommend the movie with those caveats -- it's a middling mystery with questionable character motivations that was still entertaining enough to inspire me to write my own airport novels and move to a wooded mansion in New Hampshire.

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