In film, it never feels like an accident for two beautiful people to meet. They can’t just happen to walk by each other on the street or be at a coffee shop at the same time. Of course, they can, but there’s always a reason for it to happen, either intentionally by one character or by the universe. If it’s the latter, then it’s probably a sign of what’s to come, something that should be heeded before jumping off the deep end. So, when Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) first meets Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) on a street corner because she gets sprayed with blood after a cyclist gets hit and instantly killed by a car, she probably should have taken that as a warning to stay far away from him. But how could she, when he’s standing there with his dark brown eyes and hair?

That’s how these stories always start, with a jaded and reluctant protagonist at their worst. For Lowen, it’s immediately after her mother died of cancer in her own apartment. The only thing left of her is her pills, which Lowen washes down with freezer vodka and a dash of pity for her stalled career as a novelist. A lifeline appears in the form of an offer to be a ghostwriter for a bestselling thriller series by Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), Jeremy’s wife, who has secretly become catatonic after a recent car accident. Not more than twenty minutes after they both witnessed manslaughter, Jeremy and Lowen are discussing having her come to the Crawfords’ Vermont house to make sense of Verity’s copious notes and begin writing the new novel.

As nice as the house is, Lowen can’t help but feel a darkness permeating the air. Death had already taken over the place when one of Jeremy and Verity’s twins accidentally drowned in the nearby lake. Now Verity is essentially dead, sitting motionless in her wheelchair as the years go by. Stumbling around, Lowen discovers a secret manuscript by Verity, one that serves as both an autobiography and a confession. It reveals Verity’s deepest and darkest thoughts and actions, revealing that nothing about her has been what others have said.

If the basic beats of this story all sound a little too similar to last year’s The Housemaid, then you’re not alone. A lonely protagonist with a dark and troubled past? Check. A palace-like house that features lots of dark hallways and rooms? Check. A husband who is extremely handsome and dutiful to his fraught wife? Check. Parts of the story are revealed through the wife’s account of the past? Check. Sexual chemistry begins to bud between the protagonist and the husband? Check.

It’s neither Verity author Colleen Hoover nor The Housemaid author Freida McFadden’s fault for this large overlap. These are the types of stories that sell, ones filled with sex, death, and dark secrets. Hoover has become a cinematic goldmine for it over the years, with churned-out adaptations of It Ends with Us, Regretting You, and Reminders of Him. Each has its own twisted sense of romance, with this one at least being smart enough to put it within the shell of a dark thriller.

But it does always feel like a shell of itself, going through the motions without much fanfare. Director Michael Showalter, who has become quite the journeyman over the past few years, makes us wait an awfully long time for something good to happen. And when the secrets finally get spilled, they’re without a biting edge. Johnson’s character says that she has a resting bored face, which is also what I had for the majority of the runtime.

As expected, the leads are incredibly attractive. By nature of her having to sit in a wheelchair in the present timeline, Hathaway’s involvement is strictly limited to recreations of past events in her writing, as well as plugs for the Call Her Daddy and Hot Ones podcasts. A little bit of her goes a long way, an oasis in a desert filled with monthly book club filler.

Amazon MGM Studios will release Verity in theaters nationwide on October 02nd.