"A Simple Favor" is a pretty delicate balancing act. It's a thriller told with a broad sense of humor (even slapstick at times). One false move could have been deadly, resulting in a film self-serious, or straining to be "relevant," or—worse—just plain old boring. But "A Simple Favor," directed by Paul Feig, has its cake and eats it too. It's suspenseful, but also hilarious. It's insightful about the head games women can play with each other, but it doesn't burden itself with trying to be "meaningful." It's not trying to "say something" about "how we live now" or anything like that. What a relief to watch a film unafraid of letting its hair down.
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The funky stylized credits sequence (designed by David Clayton) clues us in immediately that this isn't going to be a gloomy by-the-book thriller. A throwback to 1960s comedies or spy capers, the credits involve single-color images of stilettos and purses moving around in angular cut-out shapes, a collage of conspicuous consumption, with one of the many classic French pop songs blaring behind it. The soundtrack is filled with Serge Gainsbourg songs, including "Bonnie & Clyde," his duet with Brigitte Bardot, plus "Une Histoire de Plage," "Laisse Tomber les Filles," and Jean Paul Keller's "Ca C'est Arrange." Mood-setting is one of the most important aspects of film-making, and so many films fail to establish the proper mood from the jump. "A Simple Favor," written by Jessica Sharzer, an adaptation of Darcey Bell's novel, knows exactly what it needs to do to establish the mood for all that will follow.
Anna Kendrick plays Stephanie Smothers, a single mom who runs a popular "vlog," where she shares recipes, parenting tips, and DIY how-tos. She's a type-A personality all the way, over-volunteering at her son's school, making other parents feel like slackers. In a couple of swift scenes it's established that Stephanie is virtually friendless ... until Emily Nelson (Blake Lively)—whose son goes to school with Stephanie's son—strolls into her life. Emily has a high-powered job "in the city" (New York), and ropes Stephanie in to drinking martinis after picking up the boys from school. The two sit in her palatial glass-walled home, and get drunk. Stephanie is dazzled. It's not hard to see why. Emily is casually gorgeous, wearing high heels and pinstriped suits complete with gold watch chains. (Renee Ehrlich Kalfus deserves a lot of credit for her costume design.) Emily swears like a sailor (even in front of the kids), and has a direct way of speaking: she looks right at Stephanie, intimate, encouraging. Stephanie can't believe she has been "chosen" to be this fabulous creature's friend.
There are some red flags in Emily's behavior, which Stephanie ignores. Stephanie takes Emily's picture once, without Emily's consent, and Emily, in a tone that could cut glass, tells her to delete the photo. Emily's beauty is a smokescreen for an intimidating and mercurial personality, warm and encouraging one moment, slightly scary the next. Stephanie constantly apologizes for things, and Emily tells her to stop: "It's a fucked-up female habit." She's right. But Emily always keeps Stephanie just slightly off-balance. Both actresses are in high gear here. Kendrick is so awkward you yearn for Stephanie to just relax, but her awkwardness is why the performance is so funny. And Blake Lively is the reincarnation of Julie Christie in her best work in the 1960s and '70s: ruthless and charming, sexy and detached, a completely destabilizing presence to men and women alike. This is a great role for Lively.
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And then, Emily goes missing. The police are called, and Stephanie finds herself the center of attention as Emily's "best friend." She helps Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding) out with the kids, supports him in his grief and anxiety, and gives updates on her "vlog" (her follower count goes through the roof). But slowly, Stephanie starts to wonder if there might be more going on than meets the eye. What does Stephanie really know about Emily? Who is Emily? Even Nicky refers to his wife as a "beautiful ghost." Stephanie, underestimated and mocked, intimidated by Emily's cool gaze, finds a strength she didn't know she had, and "A Simple Favor" shifts, fluidly, into Stephanie: Girl Detective. She tries to piece together Emily's past, looking for clues. The whole situation is so gratifying because Stephanie is the same mousy overachiever, dressed in cute little combos from The Gap, only now she's sneaking through apartments and offices, breaking into filing cabinets, doing things she never thought she would—or could—do.
One of Paul Feig's gifts as a director is working with strong charismatic women, giving them space to whoop it up, work off one another, be co-creators. There's space in his approach, space left for behavior, humor, spontaneity. (Think of Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in "The Heat." That pairing could easily have become a franchise, should have become a franchise.) "A Simple Favor" has an intricate plot, with many surprise reveals as well as some truly spooky sequences, but it doesn't feel over-planned. Stephanie, at one point, goes into a panic, and shouts at Nicky, "Are you trying to 'Diabolique' me? Oh my God, you're trying to 'Diabolique' me!" It's a funny line, requiring you to know "Diabolique"— a remake of 1955's "Les Diaboliques," directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot—about a wife and mistress conspiring to kill the man they share in common. Those French pop songs don't dominate "A Simple Favor"'s soundtrack for nothing. The plot shares some similarities with "Gone Girl," but that's where the comparison should end. "Gone Girl" took itself very seriously. "A Simple Favor" doesn't take itself seriously at all. And that's a good thing.
Anna Kendrick (left) becomes fascinated by her new BFF (Blake Lively) in "A Simple Favor." (Photo: Peter Iovino)
In the stylish new mystery "A Simple Favor," Blake Lively's fashion design executive warns Anna Kendrick's supermom, "Oh, you do not want to be friends with me. Trust me."
Oh, yes we do! Paul Feig's latest movie gives the "Bridesmaids" and "The Heat" director (and metro Detroit native) a break from pure comedy — and a chance to tackle a stylish, cat-and-mouse mystery that feels much like a suspenseful beach read.
With its glamorous cast, humorous undertones and wicked twists, "A Simple Favor" is a fun way to say goodbye to the summer cinema season. We spoke recently with Feig, who elaborated on the film's seven essential treats.
More: Review: Thriller ‘A Simple Favor’ is deliciously campy
1. The opening credits
Before you even dig in to your popcorn, "A Simple Favor" announces its tone by mixing a zippy French pop song with images of purses, brownies and cocktails. Instead of the unrelieved bleakness of thrillers like HBO's "Sharp Objects," get ready for quirky characters in upscale settings.
"It's my way to tell the audience, 'OK, this is a thriller and you're going to be scared and it's going to be dark and all this. But if you feel like laughing at something, I have given you permission to laugh at it. ... It's all on purpose.'" says Feig. "If I had started this movie with really dramatic music and 'Oh, this is going to be tense,' and then something really funny happens, you'd be like 'Wait, is this suppose to be funny or did you make a mistake?' "
Anna Kendrick stars as a small-town mommy blogger who investigates the disappearance of her wealthy best friend in the mystery "A Simple Favor" (Sept. 14). (Photo: PETER IOVINO)
2. Anna Kendrick
The "Pitch Perfect" star is, yes, perfection as Stephanie, a tightly-wound mommy blogger who wears cute animal-print socks from Target and needs to be told not to take all the jobs at her young son's school events.
But Stephanie isn't a victim here, according to Feig. She is a woman who becomes an amateur sleuth when her new best friend, Emily — whose son goes to the same school — disappears suddenly without a trace.
And Stephanie, it's revealed, has secrets of her own to keep.
As with "Bridesmaids," "The Heat" and the fanboy-slammed, female-cast reboot of "Ghostbusters," Feig explores the relationship dynamics between the friends. He took on "A Simple Favor" not as a woman-in-peril movie, but as a thriller with two compelling female characters.
"There have been so many bad portrayals of women on screen over the years, I just really want to make sure I don't add to that," he explains.
A SIMPLE FAVOR (Photo: PETER IOVINO/SMPSP)
3. Blake Lively
The "Gossip Girl" veteran revels in the role of Emily, a deliciously anti-helicopter mom.
When Stephanie suggests a play date for their sons, Emily quips, "I already have a play date with a symphony of anti-depressants." And when Stephanie drops one of her frequent apologies as they bond over afternoon drinks, Emily warns, "Baby, if you apologize again, I'm going to have to slap the sorry out of you."
Decked out in stunning, menswear-inspired suits and dripping with fierce attitude, Emily dazzles Stephanie. It's such a great performance by Lively that you almost wish the character would be transplanted to a TV spin-off called "Gossip Moms."
Sean (Henry Golding) is a worried husband in "A Simple Favor." (Photo: Peter Iovino/Lionsgate)
4. Henry Golding
Talk about serendipitous timing. Golding is now so famous for his debut film, the box-office smash "Crazy Rich Asians," that he recently was added to a new poster for "A Simple Favor," in which he plays Sean, Emily's stressed-out husband.
Feig recalls hearing about Golding, who'd just finished filming on "Crazy Rich Asians," and going online to watch him in his former job as a travel show host. Immediately, Feig was impressed with Golding's charisma.
"I called up Jon Chu, who directed 'Crazy Rich Asians' and and just said, 'Jon, I'm thinking of casting this guy. Is he the real deal? Can he act?' And he said, 'Henry is the greatest. You will love him and he's so talented and he's a natural and he takes direction. He just wants to be as good as he can.' "
After Golding did an audition and a screen test with Lively, Feig knew he was the right guy for the part.
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 20: Blake Lively and Paul Feig attend the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall on August 20, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for MTV) ORG XMIT: 775211580 ORIG FILE ID: 1020326496 (Photo: Mike Coppola, Getty Images for MTV)
"You just go...there's no way this guy isn't going to be a star!" says Feig.
5. The movie's throwback to sleek mysteries of yore
Feig says he was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock movies "just because of the tone that he always found, which was he was really able to walk that line between thriller and comedy."
Feig also admires Hitchcock regular Cary Grant's combination of humor and elegance, which is an essential combination of "A Simple Favor."
"I love thrillers," he says. "I love the genre. But I always find myself wishing they were a little more fun at the same time, while still taking them dead seriously."
6. The Michigan presence
Part of the action is set in Michigan, and there are references to the small town of Standish, the Marquette County police and the I-75 freeway. Is this Feig's way of giving a nod to his home state?
Actually, Michigan is a location in the novel "A Simple Favor" by Darcey Bell that was the basis for the screenplay by Jessica Sharzer. But Feig is ready to take some credit.
"I don't even remember if the book, the original, was in Michigan. I think it might have been, but I'm always looking to put Michigan in a film," he says. "So I'll say, yes, if it was in the book, I reinforced it by making sure we knew it was in Michigan."
Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) try to save the president in the Season 6 finale of Showtime's 'Homeland.' (Photo: Jeff Neumann, Showtime)
7. The 'Homeland' angle
As fans of the Showtime spy drama know, Rupert Friend's Peter Quinn endured enough pain and suffering on the pay-cable series for at least 10 characters.
That's why it's such a delight to see the British actor portray a hilariously arrogant fashion designer named Dennis Nylon.
"Never wear a vintage Hermes scarf with a Gap T-shirt," Nylon chides Stephanie at one point. "If you were truly Emily's friend, you'd know that."
The assignment must have been therapeutic for Friend after all those seasons of pay-cable agony.
Says Feig: "The funny thing is we sent the script to him just to see if he wanted to do anything in it and he comes back and he wants to do Dennis Nylon. I was like, 'What?' I never would have predicted that, because I know him from 'Homeland,' too and was like, 'You're super serious. How can you play this role?' And it turns out he's really funny."
CLOSE In "A Simple Favor," the disappearance of a woman (Blake Lively) has surprising consequences for her husband (Henry Golding) and her best friend (Anna Kendrick). Paul Feig directs. Lionsgate
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds: 313-222-6427 or jhinds@freepress.com.
'A Simple Favor'
Rated R
Opens Friday
Read or Share this story: https://on.freep.com/2NeGFg4
This post contains spoilers for A Simple Favor.
How does one best describe A Simple Favor, the truly bonkers new thriller from Paul Feig starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick? Upon first look at the trailer, it seemed like yet another polished Hollywood response to Gone Girl, David Fincher’s sleek blockbuster adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel about a housewife who escapes her old life and goes on a villainous tear. A Simple Favor has similar themes; it revolves around Stephanie, a devoted mommy vlogger (Kendrick) and her best friend Emily (Lively), a mysterious, sartorially blessed P.R. exec who up and disappears one day. For the first half of the movie, it’s just that—a straight-faced drama about a missing woman, peppered with twinges of dark humor. But the second half takes that Gone Girl splash and mixes it with the true-crime satire of Serial Mom, John Waters’s glossy 1994 romp about a picture-perfect housewife with a taste for murder. Which is to say, it loses its mind and takes the audience on a crazy, flashy journey, amping up each plot twist with a bigger, wilder plot twist. Let’s break it down, shall we?
SPOILERS ALL THE WAY DOWN
For starters, the crux of A Simple Favor rests on a time-honored plot-twist tradition: secret twin. Once Emily disappears, Stephanie starts digging and, after a long journey, finds out that Emily’s been lying about her identity. Her real name is Faith and she’s got an identical twin named Hope. The girls grew up in a strict household with a manic father, and one day they snap and set one wing of their giant house on fire, killing him. The story gets picked up in the local news, with folks wondering what happened to the girls. Worried about getting arrested—and aware that a pair of towering blonde twins are super conspicuous—the teens split up, agreeing to meet again at an agreed upon date. But when it’s time to meet, Hope doesn’t show up. So, Faith journeys off on her own, refashioning herself as Emily (after a whole side journey involving Linda Cardellini’s artist character) and becoming a high-powered publicity exec in Manhattan.
So, why, after landing a dream job, dream house, dream husband (Sean, played by immaculate prince Henry Golding) and exactly one adorable child, did she blow up her life and escape from it all? Money! The answer is always money. As Emily explains early on in the film, she and Sean are a little broke. Plus, they’ve struggled to sell their house, an item that would have lent them some quick cash. Now, this is where the twists get a little hairy because even though Emily says they’re broke, they still seem to live quite nicely. Sean works at a nearby university. She still has her exec job. If anything, they should have found a way to off the house and get some insurance money. Alas, sensible and illegal-light (O.K., illegal-heavy) are not the stuff of movie plots, honey!
Emily convinces Sean to take out a $4 million life-insurance policy on her and then disappears. When her sister, Hope, turns up again—now a lined, crippling junkie—and tries to blackmail her by drawing her out to Michigan and asking for a million dollars, Emily has her aha moment: she drowns Hope in the lake and, thanks to that whole identical twin thing, the police find the body and assume it’s her. Four-million dollars on the way, easy.
Oh, you sweet sucker. Of course, it’s not that simple (favor). Against their better judgment, Stephanie and Sean start hooking up, which makes Emily furious as she watches (somehow) from afar. Stephanie then investigates Emily’s disappearance and finds out everything, then drops incredibly bold subtweets on her mommy vlog (which Emily watches, furiously). The pair has a martini-drenched tête-à-tête at Emily’s (or shall we say “Emily’s”) gravesite, agreeing to a new plan: now, Emily will return to town and tell the police it was actually her twin who died (but, you know, not by murder). Then, she’ll say she escaped because Sean was actually an abusive partner.
So, why would Stephanie bother going along with this plan even though she’s now in love with Sean and Emily is a terrible friend? It’s because she’s not going along with it. Welcome to time-honored plot twist No. 2: fake-agreeing with the evil person’s plan so you can get a secretly taped confession of all the evil things they’ve done! It’s set up neatly. Emily and Sean meet face-to-face at their beautiful, unsellable house, where he asks all manner of why-would-yous and how-could-yous, hoping to tease a clean, audible confession for the police listening on mic nearby. Then Stephanie turns up wielding a gun and giving Emily her best crazy eyes, trying not so much to tease, but to straight up cudgel a confession. She even shoots Sean in the chest and it looks pretty convincing, with fake blood quickly pooling his chest. And they get the confession! Victory!
Just kidding, when will you learn? Emily, evil mastermind, saw this coming from a mile away so she (SOMEHOW?) cuts their mics! Plus, the SWAT team that Stephanie secretly asked to show up at the house? Yeah, Emily called them and, putting on her best Stephanie voice, convinced them the meet-up had been changed to another location. Then, she pulls out a surprise gun and actually shoots Sean in the chest. Thus, the moral of the story is that one should never cross Blake Lively . . .
But the secret twist moral is one should never cross a mommy vlogger! After Emily shoots Sean, Stephanie reveals that she’s actually been live-streaming the whole entire exchange via a tiny little camera on her chest that looks like a button. And the SWAT team (that actually turned up at the other location despite the whole, you know, live-streaming thing?) finally arrives. And then, young Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, and Stellan Skarsgård show up and start singing ABBA. Incredible!
Fine, that doesn’t really happen. But it is within the realm of possibility in A Simple Favor, which contains all realms and all possibilities. It ends with Stephanie living out her viral mommy-vlog dreams, Sean moving across the country, and Emily finding her niche . . . in prison.
Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right.
