Claims extracted
23
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
4%
1 of 23 hedged
("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
61/100
The Sydney Morning Herald's corrections and
hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Entertainment
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Verity, ★★★
I’ll say this for Verity, the latest film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel (after It Ends With Us, Regretting You and Reminders of Him): it lays its cards on the table, right from the title.
asserted
it → say → title
Verity means truth (from the Latin veritas).
asserted
Verity → mean → veritas
It also happens to be the name of a bestselling crime fiction author, Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), whose novels tap into her own thoughts and longings and anti-social impulses to such a degree that her husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) stopped reading them after the first one, because he didn’t want his perception of the woman he loves to be tainted.
asserted
he → happen → woman
he knows
asserted
he → know → ?
We first meet her as she’s doing an apologetically hushed-voice reading in a sparsely attended book store, interrupted when one of the attendees gets a phone call.
asserted
one → meet → call
“Sorry,” the woman says.
asserted
woman → say → ?
“Sorry,” responds the timorous Lowen.
asserted
Lowen → respond → ?
She craves invisibility, she tells us in voiceover.
asserted
she → crave → voiceover
And yet she’s also craving attention – and when a cyclist is killed as she’s about to cross the street, she gets it.
asserted
she → crave → it
Her face and clothes covered in blood, she betrays no emotion.
asserted
she → cover → emotion
The man next to her asks if she’s OK, then lends her his shirt so she can get to an important business meeting.
asserted
she → ask → meeting
It’s Jeremy, in a coincidence that must make this a contender for most twisted meet-cute in cinematic history.
asserted
this → ’ → history
When she gets to the meeting, it’s Jeremy again (he arrives complete with fresh shirt).
asserted
he → get → shirt
Turns out Verity is incapacitated and unable to complete her next novel, and her publisher wants to find someone who can mimic her style and complete it, as well as the two after that (if nothing else, the film is truthful about the mercenary priorities of the modern publishing industry).
asserted
film → turn → industry
A life-altering sum of money is offered, and next thing you know Lowen is ensconced in the House of Truth alongside Jeremy and the couple’s young son, Crew, digging through Verity’s notes as she tries to reconstruct her thought processes and narrative stylings.
asserted
she → alter → processes
When she finds a hidden thumb drive, though, everything changes.
asserted
everything → find → drive
On it is a book Verity had written in secret, an autobiography titled So Be It.
asserted
It → write → it
And it appears to reveal some very dark verities about Verity.
asserted
it → appear → Verity
Director Michael Showalter, who created the often-hilarious Search Party, is no slouch at mixing dark humour and suspense, and he does a good job of keeping Verity on just the right side of ridiculous.
asserted
he → create → side
With Hathaway mostly immobile in her bed or chair, her face wan and stripped of make-up, her lips chapped, there’s an air of the haunted house about the beautiful lakeside residence where most of the action takes place.
asserted
most → strip → place
Verity is the Rebecca de Winter of this temple of sadness, but does Lowen have more in mind than aping her words?
asserted
Lowen → have → words
Does she want to steal her husband, her house, her life too?
asserted
she → want → husband
And with its sense of what’s real and what’s not in constant flux, it might be the perfect tale for the post-truth age in which we live.
uncertain
we → ’ → which
The Aporia
