Review of A Simple Favor (2018) by Rick D — 17 Sep 2018

Enjoyable movie that curiously wavers back and forth from being a suspenseful mystery drama to a comic romp. It gets away with this double identity for quite a while, but then falls apart a bit in the last twenty minutes as plot twists start coming at the audience in rapid fire, with little logic to them.

Anna Kendrick plays her usual character, Stephanie: a somewhat nerdy girl who also happens to be very competent and smart and nice and yet horribly insecure. Blake Lively is terrific as her new friend: a brash self-interested wealthy bad girl who wants a drinking buddy/part-time unpaid nanny to organize play dates for her son. It's not a spoiler to say her character, Emily, disappears. It would be a spoiler to discuss anything that happens after that, or the revelations about Stephanie's back story. A lot of what we discover is highly unlikely. And yet predictable, because we know what kind of movie this is! As long as the viewer doesn't take the movie too seriously, it can be a lot of fun. Just watch out for the absurdities of the final act.