This past weekend, I checked off A Simple Favor from my movie watchlist. The film, starring Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick, and Henry Golding (an all-star cast to me), is based off the 2017 book of the same name by Darcey Bell. The mystery/dark comedy was directed by Paul Feig and opened on September 14.
Going into this movie, I was a bit scared that this would be a “troubled wife with a dark past/cruel intentions” type of movie that tried too hard to be like Gone Girl. I hadn’t read the book before going to this movie, so I was basing my assumptions only on the trailers I’d seen. While there are certainly some Gone Girl elements in this movie, it put a unique twist on a story that could have easily fallen to stereotypes.
Anna Kendrick stars as Stephanie, a very much in-your-face single mom of a first grader who starts the movie as the usual quirky character I associate with Kendrick. After her son befriends a classmate, Stephanie meets Emily (Blake Lively), an elusive, career-driven woman with a twisted sense of humor that the other parents consider to be stuck-up. This begins a friendship between the two moms, grounded in strong margaritas and the sharing of wild secrets. Stephanie eventually meets Emily’s husband Sean (Henry Golding), an author who has yet to follow up on the success of his breakout book. Eventually, Stephanie considers Emily to be her best friend, and within a few weeks, Emily asks Stephanie for “a simple favor,” which is picking up her son from school while she is stuck at work. Stephanie, always eager to help, happily picks up their kids, but is dismayed when Emily doesn’t come back to pick up her son. As days go by with no sign of Emily, a full-fledged investigation begins that reveals secrets that Emily was hoping no one would find.
I was a little unsure of this movie at first; Emily’s dark humor and unconventional parenting in the first scene comes off as a bit too unrealistic. It felt like the movie was trying too hard to make sure you knew how different Stephanie and Emily were. I was worried that the movie would force Emily’s characterization too much instead of letting it unfold naturally, and that Kendrick would fall back too hard into the quirky character we’re used to seeing her play.
As time went on, the movie seems to find itself more and more. I was glad it didn’t take itself too seriously; its absurdity and use of humor differentiate it from similar movies. By the end, there were a bunch of twists that I was not expecting, and I spent the final scenes being absolutely unsure of who was on which side. Along the way, the movie falls back on a few “shock” tropes that I was able to predict, and I could piece together a few minor parts of the puzzle. The most important parts of the mystery, however, are done well and keep the audience on its toes.
The characters, though a little awkward at the beginning of the movie, transform into such drastically different people by the end. Lively, Kendrick, and Golding have great chemistry with each other, and I attribute the few parts that fell a bit flat to the writing. Kendrick in particular really shines in a role that I didn’t expect from her, and her character arc is so interesting. I love the way this movie leaves its characters in a gray area; everyone has some baggage that leaves you unsure who to root for.
Overall, I would definitely recommend seeing this movie and would probably give it 3 out of 4 stars. It wasn’t absolutely groundbreaking, but then again, not every movie has to be. It entertained me for what it was, and left me pleasantly surprised in ways I didn’t expect.