Review: A Simple Favor

Think Gone Girl meets The Talented Mr. Ripley with a dash of Martha Stewart on top of which is ladled the irresistible trashiness of a Jackie Collins novel and one gets a sense of the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mentality that permeates the neo-noir comedy, A Simple Favor.

Based on Darcey Bell's 2017 novel, the film stars Anna Kendrick as Stephanie, a stay-at-home single mom who finds time for everything from her vlog, in which she shares recipes and parenting tips, to volunteering for every possible thing at her son's grade school. Her indefatigable chirpiness, which proves a source of ridicule for her fellow parents - including a standout Andrew Rannells,who cracks that her Energizer bunny-like enthusiasm must be from crystal meth - is somewhat of a boon for Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), the mother of one of her son Miles' (Joshua Satine) classmates, Nicky (Ian Ho). Emily is everything that the perky and people-pleasing Stephanie feels she is not - a glamorous woman with a job in the city, graced with a casual, confident swagger, and a don't-care attitude she wears as stylishly as the procession of impeccably tailored suits that seem a staple of her wardrobe.

Emily lives in a beautiful house and is married to Sean (Henry Golding), who wrote a best-selling novel that made him the toast of the town a decade ago but who has since settled into a teaching job at a local college. As their sons share playdates, the women share confidences over martinis. Emily says that she and Henry are near bankruptcy and they once had a threesome; Stephanie reveals she discovered she had a half-brother at her father's funeral and slept with him soon thereafter (it's not the only time that a funeral will act as an aphrodisiac for her).

One day, Emily calls Stephanie to ask her to pick up Nicky from school and look after him whilst she tends to a work thing. Sure, Stephanie replies, she's done this many times before, no big deal. Except that Emily disappears, only to be found dead in a lake somewhere in Michigan. Though the police are on the case and naturally suspect Henry, who was tending to his hospitalised mother in London when Emily disappeared, Stephanie decides to go into detective mode and discover what really happened to her friend. Secrets are uncovered, twists and turns abound, and the film almost turns into a checklist of outrageous campiness. There's incest, twins, abusive parents, jealous husbands, a $4 million life insurance policy, and, by the way, maybe Emily isn't quite as dead buried as Stephanie, who has taken her place in Sean's home and heart, believes and hopes her to be.

It's all a bit bonkers, to be sure, and somewhat out of director Paul Feig's control. Yet for all its over-the-top, nonsensical plotting and surface-skimming of the confines placed on female identity, A Simple Favor proves an addictive watch thanks to its two perfectly cast leading ladies. Kendrick turns Stephanie's cheery pep into a type of armour to mask the darkness within, whilst Lively displays a sexy ruthlessness worthy of a noir femme fatale.

A Simple Favor

Directed by: Paul Feig

Written by: Jessica Sharzer; based on the novel by Darcey Bell

Starring: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Rupert Friend, Eric Johnson, Linda Cardellini, Jean Smart, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho