A (Not Quite So) Simple Favor

Director Paul Feig, who’s known for screwball comedies such as ‘Bridesmaids,’ ‘The Heat,’ ‘Spy’ and the all-female ‘Ghostbusters,’ takes a decidedly darker turn in his latest offering, ‘A Simple Favor,’ adapted from the 2017 novel by the same name.  Billed as a mystery suspense thriller with a dash (more than a pinch or smidgen) of black humor, ‘A Simple Favor’ had me at “hello” when I first saw its trailer.  Okay I admit, what had me at “hello” was the fact that it’s headlined by the endearing Anna Kendrick (‘Pitch Perfect,’ ‘The Accountant,’ ‘Scott Pilgrim Versus the World’) and the sassy Blake Lively (‘The Shallows,’ ‘Savages,’ TV’s ‘Gossip Girl’).

 

Kendrick plays Stephanie Smothers, a stuffy widow and single mom in Connecticut who posts video blogs of her domestic hobbies (cooking and crafts) on YouTube when she’s not smothering her young son Miles with doting affection.  At the latter’s elementary school, she meets sophisticated modern working mom Emily (Lively), with whom the lonely (bordering on clingy) Stephanie struck up a friendship despite the fact that their worlds couldn’t be further apart.  So when Emily asked Stephanie to do her the “simple favor” of picking up her son Nicky after school one day because there was some pressing personal matter she had to attend to, she said “yes” without a second thought.  Except Emily never came back.  What happened to her and where did she go?  Is she even still alive?  Does her university professor husband Sean (Henry Golding of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’) had anything to do with her sudden and unexplained disappearance?  The plot thickens.

 

If you enjoyed complex and twisty “disappearance” mysteries like ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘The Girl on the Train,’ chances are you’ll also find ASF to be a deliciously juicy and scandalous diversion.  Unlike those films, however, ASF is a lot more fun.  Under Feig’s direction, ASF manages to be soapy and light-hearted rather than serious and dark, and the “odd couple” chemistry between Kendrick and Lively lend the film a certain undeniable charm.

Grade: A-