There have been three major literary adaptations released in the last two weeks, all of which are based on books written by women, for women, featuring women-centered stories. Like their literary counterparts, the three movies—The Love Hypothesis, Verity, and Sense and Sensibility—vary in how successful they are, but together they all tell us something about the state of media for women today. Over $100 million was spent on these three movies, and each had major marketing campaigns and high-caliber casts. It’s particularly notable that so much money and care was poured into these three stories—The Love Hypothesis started as a fan fiction, Verity was originally self-published, and Sense and Sensibility has been adapted several times already.
Historically, media made almost exclusively for women has been discounted and written off, not receiving the same resources and care as media made for men. Even more than other genres, romance novels and movies aren’t given the same respect as their more masculine counterparts—the most expensive movies ever made are almost all comic book or action movies, which are just genre films marketed towards men.
But romance movies and novels offer an avenue for less traditionally masculine audiences to explore their desires, romantic and otherwise, and it’s time for them to be taken seriously. Despite the varying levels of success, I’m hopeful that these three recent adaptations are harbingers for a potential shift.
The Love Hypothesis
The Love Hypothesis was released by Amazon MGM Studios on Amazon Prime on September 23, 2026. The movie adapts Ali Hazelwood’s romance novel, based on fan fiction inspired by the Star Wars universe. The movie stars Lili Reinhart (Riverdale, Hustlers) as Olive Smith, a biology PhD student, and Tom Bateman (Hedda, Death on the Nile) as Adam Carlsen, a grumpy professor who convinces her to enter into a fake relationship with him. The movie also features a strong supporting cast, with Rachel Marsh (Adults, The Morning Show) and Jaboukie (of Twitter notoriety) playing Olive’s best friends. Reinhart is believable as the quirky, awkward cancer researcher who’s able to pull the grumpy (and frankly, quite mean) Adam out of his shell.
However, despite Reinhart’s charm, I didn’t find Reinhart and Bateman fully believable as love interests, and the movie sanitized a bit of what makes their relationship in the book compelling, which could have been a function of trying to adapt the story entirely from Olive’s point of view. The removal of Adam’s best friend Holden from the story also took away a necessary counterpart to Adam’s caustic demeanor. But director Claire Scanlon, who broke through with her 2018 film Set It Up, knows what she’s doing, and the movie goes down easily.
Given the large budget for the film, and the huge success of the book, it’s shocking that this didn’t get a theatrical release. But even without a massive release, the studio still put considerable effort into the marketing campaign, with Lili Reinhart hitting the press tour in outfits inspired by the great rom-coms of the 90s and 2000s. Hopefully Amazon will reconsider this policy for future rom-coms.
Verity
The latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, Verity, hit theaters on October 2nd. The movie stars Anne Hathaway (The Odyssey, Mother Mary) as Verity Crawford, an author who is paralyzed and incapable of speaking. Her husband Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett (Trap, The Virgin Suicides) hires Lowen Ashleigh, played by Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades of Gray, The Materialists), to ghostwrite Verity’s next book. Lowen moves in with the Crawford family, combing through Verity’s notes, and ingraining herself into Verity’s life along the way. Through her research, Lowen comes to find a manuscript that seems to contain some horrifying confessions from Verity.
They’ve tried hard to market this movie as a psychosexual erotic thriller. But it’s as much a psychosexual erotic thriller as the novel is “high literature” (it’s not). And that’s okay! It just needs to be honest about what it is. I haven’t decided if this movie—and everyone involved—was trying to be campy and if they are in on the joke about the quality of the writing behind the story, but I’m guessing they’re not. Early in the movie, when asked if she has read Verity’s other books, Lowen says “I don’t read books you can buy at the airport.” It’s clearly her character establishing that she feels like she’s above mass-market paperbacks, but it also feels a bit like Colleen Hoover and the filmmakers looking down on mass-market media, while failing to actually elevate the story.
There’s nothing actually erotic about the movie, and there are very few thrills. Most of the tension falls flat, potentially because so much of the movie has to be carried by Dakota Johnson, who seems incapable of carrying a drama. Anne Hathaway does her best, but is bed-ridden for most of the movie, and her acting is predominately through a very breathy voiceover and flashes of her sitting at a computer typing the manuscript.
And yet, despite all of its flaws, there is a ton of talent behind this movie, and you can tell they took the source material seriously. Unfortunately, they were inherently limited by said source material.
Sense and Sensibility
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Georgia Oakley’s (Blue Jean) version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. The film features a broad cast, including Daisy Edgar Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing, Normal People), Esme Creed-Miles (The Chronology of Water), and Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Hamnet) as the Dashwood sisters, and Caitriona Balfe (Outlander) as their mother, Mrs. Dashwood. Frank Dillane, Herbert Nordrum, and George MacKay round out the core cast as the love interests, and Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter, Persuasion) brings it all together as Mrs. Jennings. They’re all perfectly cast, and they all deliver performances that elevate the characters beyond the page.
The film is a by-the-book adaptation, following the Dashwood women as they adjust to life without their patriarch, seeking marriages and accommodations to maintain their standard of living. I’m not entirely convinced that the film has a point of view or anything new to add to the adaptation, but it is perfectly competent and a delightful time at the movies. You can feel that the filmmakers spent a significant amount of time figuring out what worked in previous adaptations, specifically the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, and incorporated those elements into this contemporary take on the book.
Diana Reid’s script perfectly captures Austen’s balance between playful humor and deep romanticism, delivering a screenplay that is funny and heartfelt, and that pairs perfectly with Arnaud Potier’s photography. The film uses soft natural lighting, and a traditional, but thoughtful score, to fully round out the romance of it all. It’s all very effective! By the end, I was giggling and blushing and crying a bit. The film so wonderfully depicts all of the things that can factor into love, both romantic and familial, and the sacrifices that come with prioritizing those you love above yourself. Overall, it was charming and romantic and a worthy adaptation. I hope Georgia Oakley gets to adapt as many classic novels as she wants.
