Taylor Swift’s ‘Patient Zero’ is a short film disguised as a music video. And its gothic storyline has some very unexpected connection to the just-released movie ‘Verity’. The similarities go far beyond their shared leading lady, Dakota Johnson. And once you spot their very specific literary influence, it is completely impossible not to go down a rabbit hole to investigate it.
‘Patient Zero’ And ‘Verity’ Share The Same Gothic DNA
Taylor Swift’s ‘Patient Zero’ music video sees her in the role of a woman who has been killed by her husband. Dakota Johnson portrays this man’s new partner. After the honeymoon phase of their relationship, she begins getting sick for reasons she cannot explain. She starts to question her own perception of reality as she gets disturbing visions of Swift’s character, trying to warn her about something.
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That basic premise eerily parallels the story of ‘Verity’. Based on Colleen Hoover’s novel, the film follows Johnson in the role of Lowen, a writer brought into the household of celebrated author Verity Crawford, played by Anne Hathaway. She is hired to complete Verity’s bestselling mystery series after she gets in a car accident and is unable to write. While staying at the Crawford house, she discovers some disturbing writings from Verity that begin Lowen’s relationship with Verity’s husband Jeremy and lead them all towards more twisted events.
At the centre of both stories is a particular gothic idea: two women connected through the same man, with one woman’s story reaching the other as something goes terribly wrong. Both projects have taken their influence from the literary discourse surrounding Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’ and Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’.
‘Patient Zero’ makes the supernatural element more explicit, with Swift’s dead character coming in visions to Johnson’s character. Meanwhile, ‘Verity’ builds upon the mystery by exploring fiction writing, contortion of truth, and competing versions of reality.
Swift herself has described ‘Patient Zero’ as an opportunity to explore the cinematic and literary genre she loves, specifically incorporating gothic stories, true crime and psychological thrillers. And that literary connection is what makes the similarities so particularly interesting. Both projects draw from the long tradition of female-led gothic literature where women fiercely tell their version of the story and refuse to let the secrets stay buried.
The Real-Life Coincidence Between ‘Patient Zero’ And ‘Verity’ That Feels Impossible
The thematic parallel is enough to make anyone curious, but the real-world coincidences surrounding these two projects will surely send anyone down a rabbit’s hole.
Actress Dakota Johnson plays the second woman in both stories – the woman who enters an already complicated household to confront the conflicted perspective of the previous woman and the man she has just fallen in love with.
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Then there is the timing. ‘Verity’ premiered at the Curzon Mayfair Cinema on September 24, with its theatre release happening on October 2. Whereas the ‘Patient Zero’ music video was publicly released on September 30.
The fan theory questioning the connection between these two projects grew so strong that ‘Verity’ producer and star Anne Hathaway found herself questioning the same thing. She revealed that she contacted producer Stacey Sher to find out if there was something she missed. But Sher made it clear that there wasn’t any hidden connection between the two projects waiting to be revealed since she didn’t even know what “Patient Zero” Hathaway was referring to.
Hathaway ultimately described it as a “weird coincidental timing”, praising Johnson’s performance in the video and Swift’s direction. Though the connection didn’t stop there. While promoting ‘Verity’, Hathaway was spotted wearing a necklace identical to the one Swift had worn in her ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ music video.
While none of this confirms that ‘Patient Zero‘ and ‘Verity’ are secretly connected, that hasn’t stopped it all from becoming irresistible fan-theory material. Maybe, sometimes pop culture coincidences really are coincidences and maybe, sometimes there is a deeper connection so compelling that it can draw anyone in.
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