Anna Kendrick looks nice. I don’t mean that she’s attractive (though of course she is); I mean that, with her soft-blue eyes and small build and delicate features, she presents as a decent, wholesome person. That innate tenderness has served her well in films like 50/50, End of Watch, and The Accountant, where she’s quietly elevated the material around her with unassuming grace. A Simple Favor, the gleefully absurd, indecently entertaining new comedy-mystery from Paul Feig, efficiently exploits Kendrick’s inherent geniality while also cannily subverting it. Her character, a single mom and moderately popular suburban vlogger named Stephanie, is sugary-sweet and aggressively eager—she’s always volunteering for multiple PTA assignments (her surname is literally Smothers)—but her helping hand has an iron grip. Her dainty exterior camouflages a mettle of steel, arousing your suspicion that she has something to hide.
But really, who doesn’t? One of the many pleasures of A Simple Favor, which is as much an amateur detective yarn as a pointed comedy of manners, lies in teasing us with misdirection and insinuation, encouraging us to anticipate its inevitable twists and turns. It’s being marketed as coming from Feig’s “darker side”, which is misleading on a few counts. To begin with, the former Freaks and Geeks showrunner is no stranger to troubling themes; even his more straightforward comedies, like Bridesmaids and Spy, carry undercurrents of sadness and pain. But more centrally, labeling this movie dark is false advertising. A Simple Favor may traffic in deception, seduction, and murder, but none of that changes the fact that, at its core, it’s a total fucking hoot.
Oopsie! That’s what Stephanie would say if you cursed in her presence; she even keeps a swear jar in her house for that very purpose. It’s that kind of quaint detail that distinguishes her so dramatically from Emily, another mother of a student at the school where Stephanie sends her son to kindergarten. A statuesque figure with flowing yellow locks and legs longer than a prep-school waitlist, Emily is Stephanie’s physical and temperamental counterpoint. In related news, she’s played by Blake Lively.
The casting of Lively is inspired, and not just because she and Kendrick—tall vs. short, blonde vs. brunette—could headline a remake of Twins. In The Shallows, Lively proved she can be an everywoman, but there’s still something alien about her, an exoticness that contrasts perfectly with Kendrick’s homey personability. And the first half hour of A Simple Favor, which tracks Stephanie and Emily’s burgeoning friendship (they’re flung together when their sons demand a playdate), is downright exquisite. Feig has always excelled in contrapuntal female banter—even The Heat, one of his weaker efforts, featured some glorious joshing between Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy—and here he highlights the differences of his leading ladies while also drawing them closer.
A Simple Favor is both acidly funny and agreeably engrossing, but it’s the capricious relationship between these two women that is its most alluring quality. Stephanie is entranced by Emily, to the point where she divulges her darkest secret, which leads to Emily referring to her by way of a deliciously vulgar hyphenate. In fact, Emily treats her skittish new companion like a cat toying with a mouse. “I’m sorry,” Stephanie says constantly, less out of genuine contrition than of habit; “If you apologize again, I’m going to have to slap the sorry out of you,” Emily responds. She’s just kidding! Isn’t she? She certainly seems deathly serious when she demands that Stephanie delete a photo that she snaps of her, suggesting a woman who prizes living incognito and also one who demands utter obedience from all who serve her, including her husband, Sean (Henry Golding, from, well, you know). When a starstruck Stephanie first walks into Emily’s home—a handsome art-deco McMansion with gleaming countertops and enormous walk-in closets, with one grey wall accented by a spectacular nude of its owner—Feig’s camera shoots her like a doe unwittingly wandering into a lion’s lair. Small wonder: Emily makes a martini the way Tywin Lannister skins a deer.
But is she predator or prey? The movie is framed by Stephanie’s YouTube videos (she has a few more followers than the hero of Eighth Grade), the first of which informs us that Emily—her best friend!—is missing. And A Simple Favor, for all its delectable wit and observational sharpness, is not just a story of an asymmetrical friendship. It is also a gumshoe picture, following Stephanie as she frantically searches for her vanished bestie.
What does she find? A lot. Adapted from Darcey Bell’s novel (the screenplay is by Jessica Sharzer), A Simple Favor is laden with surprises and double-crosses—think Gone Girl: Suburban Mom Edition. Feig’s slow unraveling of the film’s central mystery is competent, even if it can’t help but feel somewhat mechanical compared to the juicy repartee of its opening act; Stephanie looking for Emily isn’t nearly as electric as Stephanie talking to Emily. Still, Feig delivers the requisite noirish elements effectively. Multiple conversations are clandestinely recorded; guns are waved and fired; a murky past involving a house fire is uncovered; a tattoo acquires outsized importance, as does a ring; a wrench is pulled by gravity toward a gruesome fate.
It’s fun stuff, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. Feig isn’t as insistently democratic a filmmaker as his cohort Judd Apatow, but he still appreciates the value of a good supporting cast, and he lets everyone eat. Andrew Rannells earns a few belly laughs as one of Stephanie’s school compatriots, as does Rupert Friend as a haughty designer. Jean Smart gets to stare ominously into a fireplace, while Bashir Salahuddin is amused and amusing as a suspicious detective. The only actor who seems hamstrung is Golding, who may be on his way to being typecast as the vapid beefcake.
Tonally, A Simple Favor is wide-ranging, sliding from piercing comedy to lurid mystery to paranoid thriller. For the most part, Feig balances these shifts adroitly, often combining them for some zesty punch, as when someone earnestly asks, “Are you trying to Diabolique me?” It isn’t until the third act where he loses control, with a haywire finale that completely drains the reservoir of tension that the film had spent the past 90 minutes scrupulously filling. And that doesn’t even account for the unnecessary coda, which features some idiotic text to go with a strained punch line that isn’t nearly as funny as it needs to be.
That the movie holds together as cohesively as it does is a credit to Kendrick’s sly, quietly magnetic performance. She’s overdue for a role like this, where she can let a little bit loose without squandering her abiding intelligence. In a film populated by schemers and saps, Stephanie is more complex, and the way Kendrick coyly plays her evolution—close to the chest, gradually revealing new and surprising facets of her persona—helps steer you around A Simple Favor’s many hairpin curves. Stephanie can’t stop saying sorry, but in brilliantly capturing her character’s hidden pluck, Kendrick has nothing to apologize for.
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.
Twice in a row you impugn my future husband. JK you are probably right . . . but a vapid beefcake is still delicious. We are going to see this tonight so I'm glad you liked it!!
He's very pretty! Just not yet convinced that he's a great actor. But we'll see. In the meantime, enjoy your delicious beefcake.