Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars
Bottom Line: A dramadey that had me smiling from start to finish. Also a crime thriller. Also a satire. What I’m trying to say is there’s a lot going on here.
Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) is the kind of mother that all suburbanite parents hate; beautiful, successful, confident, wonderful husband, self-absorbed, narcissistic. Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is the kind of mother that all suburbanite parents hate; beautiful, over-achieving, aims-to-pleasing, perfect in every way, all while being a single mom. Emily is the spider to Stephanie’s fly and all the suburbanite parents know it so when the two meet, they all know one thing: This is going to be fun. The two quickly strike up a friendship and become besties, but Emily isn’t exactly the type to have a bestie, but she is the type to have a pet. And like a determined pet, when Emily goes missing, Stephanie will stop at nothing to find out what happened to her.
“A Simple Favor” starts as kind of a satire on suburban life. There’s a lot of petty sniping at the very perfect Stephanie and at the very easy to dislike Emily. It then morphs into this weird, uncomfortable drama as the friendship between Stephanie and Emily grows very one-sidedly deeper as Stephanie falls completely in awe, if not in love with Emily. Then it turns into a who-done-it when Emily mysteriously disappears. Throughout the whole thing, the movie has a delightfully wicked sense of humor that ties everything together.
Both Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick are wonderful in this movie. They play almost polar opposite characters but have this perfect chemistry even as opposed characters that I so want to see them in either a buddy comedy or as a superhero duo. Or maybe as the evil and good conscience sitting on the shoulders of Kristen Bell who gets into wacky hijinks.
The movie also stars Henry Golding as Emily’s husband, Sean Townsend. First off, how lucky is Henry? He has gone from relative obscurity to being in two awesome films in a single year, the other being “Crazy Rich Asians”. Second, it didn’t click with me when watching the movie, but the married couple are Emily Nelson and Sean Townsend. They kept their last names! Not only that, but their child is named Nicky Nelson. They used the mom’s last name! Little thing, but still kind of cool.
“A Simple Favor” is fun and well acted and has a few “why in the world did they do that?” moments, which can be forgiven. It is well worth watching and you would be doing yourself a disservice if you do not see it. I had a smile on my face for quite some time after leaving the theater.