Another Simple Favor
2025
In 2018, I wrote the following short review.
What can I say about Paul Feig's new movie, A Simple Favor? I can save a lot of trouble and tell you it's basically Gossip Gone Girl. While I find Anna Kendrick annoying, that trait is part of her character this time around, and so I can get past it. She actually does her awkward soccer mom role very well. Blake Lively, as the enigmatic disappearee, does little but wear nice clothes and pretend to be a post-Hitch blonde. She can't quite pull it off.
All that is true, but it's still an amusing film, a light concoction that wants to be dark. Is it feasible? As if. But it doesn't need to be. It wears its charm on the surface. Just don't dig too far down.
Well, it’s 2025, and Feig has released a sequel on Prime Video called Another Simple Favor. Everything I said of the previous film remains true, though Kendrick and Lively have grown a bit as actresses, making their characters more lived-in. But this franchise is still Pulp® by Christian Dior…in the best way.
These movies erect no pretense of plausibility or seriousness. They’re confections, like I said. Beautiful men and women wear beautiful clothes while wandering around beautiful Capri and watching the (beautiful) body-count grow. It’s a sort of pure escapist entertainment that knows the audience wants extremes and no-she-didn’t moments, and delivers.
Another Simple Favor outdoes its predecessor in exoticism and fashion. The plot is weaker, but literally no one cares. It’s still a sexy murder party where terrible-but-glamorous people say the things we wish we could say in real life.
Normally, this formula would not be quite enough for me (though I did see Book Club: The Next Chapter in the theatre for many of the same reasons). But Feig has hit on a winning duo with these two characters and their perfectly-cast actresses. Again, their underlying annoying quality is baked into the mix, so it becomes frothy fun. I think I could watch five Simple Favor films and remain entertained.
The formula embraces the fun flourishes of pulp fiction: triplets named Faith, Hope, and Charity; sexy, mysterious mafioso hunks named Dante; shower murder; a woman in hiding who wears the most conspicuous and crazy outfits possible. It knows it’s fun, and it enjoys both reveling in and mocking itself.
If you choose to watch this movie, though, please do me one simple favor: watch the original first, because Feig does not waste time catching you up on all that happened seven years ago. The hats simply take up too much room.