Y’ALL. I was so excited for this movie. Literally so pumped and went for my birthday opening night. Guess what? I hated it. It didn’t stay true to the book (I’ll be posting a book vs. movie tomorrow). It was the slowest paced “thriller” I’ve ever watched in my life. It had a ton of unnecessary sexual scenes. It was just bad. It felt like a fever dream and not in a good way.

I’ll start with what I did like about this movie. Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson. These ladies pulled the whole entire movie on their backs, and I know they are hurting for it. Their acting was impeccable (as per usual), but the writing was just so bad that they couldn’t save this film. I feel sorry for Dakota Johnson because I feel like ever since she was in 50 Shades of Grey, people just want her to have a naked scene on screen. We did not need that bathtub scene (you know what I mean if you watched the movie). Dakota Johnson, though, really held a lot of the movie up. Anne Hathaway as Verity? She was amazing. It would have been perfect if they actually stuck to the book and the screenplay didn’t drag on as much as it did. 

So, back to my rant. This movie, I think, was supposed to feel atmospheric and like a crazy fever dream. However, it was not the fever dream you wanted. It was slow, monotonous, and didn’t feel as thrilling as it was marketed to be. Any time you would get to something that would increase the pace of the movie, it would cut to a new scene and completely slow the pace down again. It was painful to watch. 

Also, the amount of things that just DIDN’T MAKE SENSE was insurmountable. The book made sense. This movie? Nothing made sense. (I’ll mention the exacts in the spoiler). 

I will say that they did a good job with the ending (besides one tiny thing that aggravated the heck out of me that I’ll mention in the spoilers). The whole reveal was great. 

Spoilers ahead. 

Basically, the whole movie, Lowen is on Xanax and it feels like she is hallucinating everything. Verity isn’t actually comatose and admits to faking it (after Lowen shows Jeremy the manuscript where Verity admits she killed Harper). Lowen tells Jeremy to make it look like an accident, so he smothers her. The thing that doesn’t make sense is that they dumped her body in the lake. Any person would know that if she drowned, there would be water in her lungs. It wouldn’t have been deemed an accident. It was so aggravating. 

Then Lowen finds Verity’s letter saying that the manuscript was fake and a writing exercise. I fully believe that Jeremy is the psychotic one because he already knew about the manuscript and just made it seem like he didn’t so he could have an excuse to kill Verity. My opinions obviously, but that’s what I think. 

Overall, I WILL NOT be watching this movie ever again and I’m going to pretend like it never happened. Sorry for fans, but I seriously didn’t like it. Don’t come for me please haha. 

Where to Watch: