It takes a while in the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation for the pages to start turning, the pot to begin boiling and the bestseller to reveal its juiciest secrets. But buried within the guilty-pleasure formula of Michael Showalter’s slow-burn thriller Verity (B-) are some deliciously campy pleasures. After a confounding metropolitan meet-cute, Josh Hartnett’s character convinces a struggling novelist played by Dakota Johnson to retreat to his secluded lakeside home and finish a bestselling series written by his now-catatonic wife, the titular Verity (Anne Hathaway). Johnson takes a while to find her footing, or much believability, in this quasi-mystery despite a cavalcade of ominously charged objects ranging from nanny cams and motorized beds to canoes and PB&Js. Hathaway is saddled with a mostly thankless role told through flashbacks, but eventually gets the opportunity to lean gleefully into the unhinged. Hartnett fares best as the charismatic liaison caught between two increasingly dangerous women. There’s a lot of melodrama about manuscripts before the plot finally gets cooking, but once it does, the final act delivers some satisfyingly lurid twists and turns. Verity is never quite titillating or thrilling enough to become a trash-classic all-timer, but when the literary intrigue finally gives way to full-blown pulp, it becomes a pretty good page-turner after all.