X
- 2018
- R
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 57 m
- 2018
- R
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 57 m
Summary Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a mommy vlogger who seeks to uncover the truth behind her best friend Emily's (Blake Lively) sudden disappearance from their small town. Stephanie is joined by Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding) in this stylish thriller filled with twists and betrayals, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty, murder and ...
Directed By: Paul Feig
Written By: Darcey Bell, Jessica Sharzer
- 2018
- R
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 57 m
- 2018
- R
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 57 m
A Simple Favor
67
6.8
Where to Watch
Summary Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a mommy vlogger who seeks to uncover the truth behind her best friend Emily's (Blake Lively) sudden disappearance from their small town. Stephanie is joined by Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding) in this stylish thriller filled with twists and betrayals, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty, murder and ...
Directed By: Paul Feig
Written By: Darcey Bell, Jessica Sharzer
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 41 Critic Reviews
67
66% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
32% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
2% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 41 Critic Reviews
67
66% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
32% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
2% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Feig has done a superb job of building a compelling story from angular bits that shouldn’t fit together but do while making pointed commentary on everything from gender roles to social media.
With its martini-swilling leads and swingy French pop soundtrack, A Simple Favor seems to yearn for a bygone era of nail-biter, but rather than wallow in pastiche, it comes up with something truly contemporary feeling.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 239 User Ratings
6.8
66% Positive
158 Ratings
158 Ratings
27% Mixed
64 Ratings
64 Ratings
7% Negative
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 239 User Ratings
6.8
66% Positive
158 Ratings
158 Ratings
27% Mixed
64 Ratings
64 Ratings
7% Negative
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
crizzyview! Campy, funny, devilish. Great fun. Loved it! I think it was under rated by critics and should do very well at the People’s Choice awards.
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A Simple Favor was better than I could have ever imagined. The story and plot was so twisty and cool. The whole time I never knew where the movie was going next. It was amazingly unpredictable. Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick's performances were stupendous and Henry Golding gave an fantastic performance. A+.
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The consciously campy A Simple Favor is as bright and bracing as an ice cold gin martini with a lemon twist, and just as satisfying.
As messy and predictable as its plot can get, A Simple Favor is an engaging throwback to the aforementioned tongue-in-cheek mysteries, drawing much of its energy from the chemistry between Kendrick and Lively. It need not be any more than that.
Kendrick and Lively have never been funnier, snapping one-liners at each other like elastic bands; the script is hyper-alert to the undercurrent of competitiveness between stay-at-home and working mums.
For the big tonal swings in A Simple Favor to work, the characters needed to be more plausibly grounded. Lively and Kendrick’s early scenes ping-pong nicely with odd-couple chemistry, but “A Simple Favor” loses the thread, and never shakes the feeling of a rushed Gillian Flynn knockoff.
This is noir as costume party.
A lot of regulars here have included many of the observations I'd make, so I'll add this: the film's beginning writes a check that the end bounces. It's a decent setup but falls apart in its execution, especially at the end where the twist-after-twist leaves you shaking your head and mumbling, "so so stupid, ..." It had real potential and in the hands of a director who knows what they're doing, would've been an awesome insurance-fraud-gone-wrong tale. Instead, it's a disappointing JV production. (Reasonable ratings for "A Simple Favor" are 4-7, anything more are shills or hyperfans of the stars.)
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The movie isn’t intense, funny, scaring, and it’s predictable. The begging was actually pretty good. The characters are interesting and the story isn’t bad. The acting was fine as well. The middle of the movie had some intense scenes, but other than that it was boring, unfunny, and bland. The ending was pretty predictable as well as hard to believe any of it could happen in real life. The ending wasn’t intense either. I didn’t enjoy it, and don’t recommend people to watch the movie.
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Sure, it’s got lots of pretty clothes that would be the hotspot sale on Black Friday. Sure, it’s got Anna Kendrick, whom many say is a role model because of her outer beauty. But you know what? Neither of those things matter, because they’re relied on to hold up a film high in fructose. The sugar of A Simple Favor may taste sweet, except the rush of its evil intentions churns regret once your health turns detrimental after swallowing its poorly put together eye candy.
At least the candy does look sweet in its display case; the makeup crew demonstrate tremendous effort to bring out Anna Kendrick’s beauty with or without mascara. The costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus (The Cider House Rules, Hidden Figures) also complements the Pitch Perfect star well while keeping it supportive toward the narrative. Kalfus dresses Anna in a big yellow jacket to divert our attention from any covered-up intentions, just one of the many popping colors that complement the film’s desired retro style. The look remains consistent right from the opening credits that flash against zesty Spanish music, carrying on these sharp colors to contrast two sides of our ideal 2018 American woman.
On one end, there are Anna Kendrick’s cutesy Pinterest mom DIY projects. On the other, there is Blake Lively’s aesthetics of a woman paid more than a man. Now as for the costar’s character, Blake first appears with high heels pounding on wet cement, a growing image of sophistication that still can’t match the size of her secretive closet. Between these two, they supposedly become close friends after knowing each other for just a couple of days, as represented by a friendship bracelet Anna makes for Blake. No, it doesn’t matter if Blake has a painting of her “pet beaver” in the living room, there’s just something about these two that meshes well.
There’s where the problem with this film starts.
The two leads’ “close” friendship of what looks like two days is never believable, mainly because of the awful writing void of any believable grief that gives neither actress any depth to work off. Blake Lively’s character is merely overpowered, but even if this had the best writer in the world, it wouldn’t help much. Blake just puts on her own show without any chemistry with anyone in the cast. Odds are, she decided to play a mother who chugs alcohol around little kids by merely acting as if drunk on a typical Saturday night.
In fact, there was probably some alcohol hopping all over the sets during the production, as it appears these producers like to annihilate a child’s innocence by making one little boy drop an F-bomb hard. That’s fine if it serves story purpose, except it doesn’t, it just comes off forced and lazy, and nobody seemed to bother giving the child actor any context of what he was screaming.
There literally is no other attention to story anywhere else, as one missed opportunity for clever symbolism sticks out: after one police officer mentions following metaphorical bread crumbs to solve a case, the very next scene features Caesar salad with bread crumbs in it. It tries to connect to a Hansel & Gretel scenario where Anna feels like the two children inside Blake the witch’s mega-expensive gingerbread house of a home, unfortunately that piece of symbolism has no payoff. In addition, many unnecessary flashbacks get explained again the same way immediately after thrown into the final edit. As if the storytelling isn’t lazy enough, Anna claims to be a “struggling” single mom—yet can purchase expensive technology for her mommy vlog… and the occasional spy equipment. Can’t make this stuff up, folks!
In most every role Anna plays nowadays, she’s either a clueless love interest (like in The Accountant) or “Slutty McSlut-slut,” (like in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates) but here, Anna combines the cluelessness with the sex-object in a way that thinks it’s so classy. Part of the problem is that most of the project’s other creative minds have comedic backgrounds, resulting in a collaborated direction that moves too quick, and Anna, unfortunately, being the leading role, gets the last laugh. If these producers wanted to cast her purely for the marketing, they didn’t even do that right! Case in point: the little black dress Anna wears in the poster is never shown in the movie itself—just a longer version of it. Hey, got to show those legs to lure in those box office numbers!
There truly is evil lurking everywhere in this wannabee thriller with an ultimate intent on not suspense, but advertising whatever the celebs are wearing. So, do yourself A Simple Favor by avoiding this Macy’s commercial.
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Production Company
BRON Studios,
Creative Wealth Media Finance,
Feigco Entertainment,
Lionsgate Films
Release Date Sep 14, 2018
Duration 1 h 57 m
Rating R
Tagline What Happened to Emily?
Awards
VHS Awards
• 2 Nominations
Young Entertainer Awards
• 2 Nominations
GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
