A Simple Favor -- a review

Anna Kendrick stars as Stephanie Smothers, a prim and proper suburbanite living in Connecticut. A single mom, she still finds the time to help out at her young son’s school and run a cooking/arts & crafts vlog online. Stephanie is so proper that she never curses, nor does she get a chance to hear much cursing in her quaint, quiet life--at least until she meets Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), a worldly woman who drops the f-bomb every other word in her sentences. The extremely laid back Emily works at a high-pressured job in New York City, and doesn’t think of anything of having a martini (or two, or three) in the middle of the day.

The fact that these two become fast friends despite their differences is a testament to the well-written script, as well as its two talented leading ladies. And if A Simple Favor simply stopped there and became a comedy/drama about this Odd Couple relationship between two women in the suburbs, it would still be an extremely good movie. But director Paul Feig, who directed the 2016 all-female Ghostbusters, provides us with an interesting twist that sends A Simple Favor deep into suspense/crime thriller territory. And it still works admirably.

What makes A Simple Favor work so well is that Kendrick’s and Lively’s great performances makes you care for their characters right out of the gate, as well as the fact that Feig wisely grabs the viewer by introducing them to the mystery right up front, and then tells his story in extended flashback, where we meet the main characters and are made to sympathize with them--all while knowing that something bad is about to happen. But Feig still manages to find the comedy in the crime thriller genre without pushing A Simple Favor too far into slapstick hilarity. There are still very funny moments that pop up within the suspenseful sequences.

When A Simple Favor goes into full mystery mode, Kendrick’s Stephanie is the perfect protagonist to investigate, because her determination to get to the bottom of things, despite her wide-eyed, Nancy Drew innocence, makes her even more endearing to watch. And the film even allows Stephanie to change and grow as a character from this experience. A Simple Favor is a smart, funny thriller that was so good overall that I didn’t want it to end (which necessitated a second viewing soon after). It would really be fun to see Kendrick return as her suburban sleuth Stephanie in another cinematic adventure. --SF

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