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Simply Resistible

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Another Simple Favor

by George Wolf

Five years ago, A Simple Favor delivered a pretty delicious slice of satire for the angsty modern woman/wife/mother. Buoyed by the chemistry of stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, it mixed B-movie trappings with in-the-moment irony for a fun, twisty tale of gaslighting, betrayal, murder, and mommy vlogs.

Amazon Prime brings the two stars back together for Another Simple Favor, along with director Paul Feig and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer (sharing screenplay credit this time with Laeta Kalogridis). And while the mischievous spark is still there, it struggles for air under narrative excess.

Since putting the conniving Emily (Lively) away, Stephanie (Kendrick) has become a successful author still milking her role in the tabloid-ready murder mystery. So imagine everyone’s surprise when, who comes vamping in to Stephanie’s latest book reading but Emily herself, out on appeal with an appeal of her own.

She’s headed overseas to marry the dashing Dante Versano (Michele Morrone)! And Stephanie simply must come to Capri and be her Maid of Honor!

Why not? They’ll be gorgeous locales, incredible food, beautiful people, and there’s no way Emily could have cooked up some elaborate plan for revenge, right? Right?

It gets elaborate, all right, and not always in a fun way. Emily’s ex (Henry Golding) and Stephanie’s agent (Alex Newell) both come along for some arguably necessary reasons, and the introductions of Aunt Linda (Allison Janney) and Mom Margaret (Elizabeth Perkins) seem overly convoluted.

Much like Golding when his character is drunk, most everything about this sequel just screams “trying too hard.” If some secrets are good, more secrets must be better! And the mafia, yeah, throw some mafia family feuding in there, too! The longer we’re away from Steph and Emily, the more it drags.

But Lively and Kendrick always keep it watchable. They’ve got these roles down cold, and their snappy interplay remains frisky and fabulous. Together, they’re still simply irresistible. It’s the rest of Another Simple Favor that makes it easier to resist.

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Gaslight Anthem

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A Simple Favor

by George Wolf

Stephanie is a suburban single mom who keeps an “oopsie” jar for swearing and volunteers for everything at her son’s elementary school.

Emily is passionately married, drops frequent f-bombs and has a painting of her vajayjay hanging in the living room.

But a play date for their sons leads to an unlikely friendship in A Simple Favor, a crazy fun mystery with plenty of surprises up its sassy sleeveless number.

The first may be seeing the director is Paul Feig, who made his name with blockbuster comedies such as Bridesmaids and Spy.

So, he’s doing dark thrillers, now? Nope, he’s doing a satirical comedy with strong women, nice diversity and a pretty sharp bite.

Perky Stephanie (Anna Kendrick – perfect) and glamorous Emily (Blake Lively – ditto) share martinis and secrets until Emily turns up missing. Steph provides case updates on her Mommy vlog (“cookies and origami” help to ease the strain!) while spending more and more time watching Emily’s son and “comforting” her husband (Henry Golding from Crazy Rich Asians).

You’ll guess some of what comes next, but there’s plenty you won’t, unless you read Darcey Bell’s source novel. Screenwriter Jessica Sharzer (Nerve) shapes it for the big screen as a Gone Girl for the gaslight age, where ridiculousness is a default setting, all information is equally true/false and irony is a security blanket never far out of reach.

There are plenty of black comedic laughs to be found here, as well as clever plot twists and knowing nods to the expectations that come with roles of “wife,” “mother,” “career woman” and “friend.”

The running time starts to feel bloated by the third act, and the film flirts with joining the mundane fray it had been so giddily rising above. But it rallies for the win with a satisfying finale of comeuppance and LOL updates on how some characters have moved on.

A Simple Favor is not what the trailer makes you think it is – which turns out to be the perfect setup for a film with plenty of head fakes that lead to a mischievous good time.