‘Verity’ Ending Explained: What Happens to Jeremy, Lowen and Verity in the Film
The ending of ‘Verity’ lands with the same question that has trailed Colleen Hoover’s novel for years. Michael Showalter’s adaptation reaches theaters on October 2, with Anne Hathaway as the bedridden author, Dakota Johnson as Lowen Ashleigh and Josh Hartnett as Jeremy Crawford. Major spoilers for both the film and the novel follow.
The story centers on a struggling writer hired to complete a bestselling book series after an accident leaves its author, Verity Crawford, comatose. Early reports say the film follows the novel’s main beats almost to the letter. The final stretch is where the adaptation departs from the page, and that is where this breakdown of the ‘Verity’ ending begins.
What Happens in the ‘Verity’ Movie Ending
Both versions turn on the same act of violence. Jeremy suffocates Verity to death because he believes she purposely drowned their daughter Harper in the lake.
The film then moves somewhere darker than the book. Jeremy decides to drop Verity’s dead body in the lake, replicating how their daughter died. It turns a family tragedy into a grim kind of symmetry.
The film also adds a beat the novel never offered. After the body is recovered from the water, Jeremy and Lowen tearfully speak to the police. Comic Basics reads the moment as letting the audience watch the two survivors perform grief, which sharpens the question of who is telling the truth.
The Letter and Manuscript Twist
To understand why the ending divides viewers, it helps to return to the manuscript. Lowen uncovers ‘So Be It,’ a secret autobiography that lays bare Verity’s darkest thoughts. The confessions make it hard for Lowen to separate fiction from reality.
In the novel, the story closes with one more reveal. Lowen finds a handwritten letter to Jeremy from Verity hidden underneath the floor. The letter says the manuscript was written only from the villain’s perspective and that she never harmed their children. It also claims Jeremy tried to crash the car to kill Verity once he found the manuscript, and Lowen destroys it before Jeremy can read it.
Readers have argued over the evidence ever since. The scar on one of the daughters is a major point of contention, since some readers see it as proof that the manuscript was real and the letter was fake. The book leaves both versions standing, and Lowen is left unable to confirm either one.
One review describes the film as mostly faithful to the source material, including the central twist regarding the manuscript and the letter. Other coverage has not spelled out exactly how the film handles the letter, so that question remains open for now.
Changes From the Book in the Final Act
The biggest structural difference is what comes after the killing. The book does not deal with the aftermath and jumps to Jeremy and Lowen’s life together seven months later, while the film stays in the immediate fallout. That choice shifts the emphasis from a quiet epilogue to the cost of what Jeremy has just done.
Showalter did not settle on this version at once. He said the filmmakers tried different ways of ending the movie, including where Lowen’s character winds up. Hoover told Showalter and screenwriter Nick Antosca that readers would accept changes so long as the core of the story stayed intact.
Several trims also shape how the ending plays. The film erases one of the couple’s children, making Harper and Crew twins, and it leaves out the wire coat hanger sequence from Verity’s manuscript. The film also drops Lowen’s sleepwalking, and Johnson told Pedestrian that “to watch someone sleepwalk isn’t really that interesting.”
Colleen Hoover’s Reaction and Why Fans Keep Arguing
The author has not fully closed the chapter either. Hoover previously said she believes Verity was truthful in her manuscript about trying to kill her children, yet after watching the film she found herself feeling sorry for the character she once saw as the more evil one. When the novelist is rethinking her own ending, readers have good reason to stay unsettled.
Showalter appears to have built that uncertainty into the adaptation. He told E! News that “You get three different versions of the story,” pointing to the three central characters. Verity, Jeremy and Lowen each become a narrator who may not be reliable.
Critics are split on whether that fidelity pays off. SlashFilm’s review argued that Showalter stays tied to nearly every beat of the book, which leaves little room for him to have fun with it. Others will see that loyalty as exactly what the book’s fans were hoping for.
Whatever the verdict, the image of Jeremy sending Verity into the same water that took Harper is likely to linger. Do you think that final lake scene proves Jeremy truly believed the manuscript, or does the hidden letter deserve more weight in how you read the ending of ‘Verity’?
