The Big Picture
A Simple Favor is a dark comedy delight with powerhouse actresses Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively.
The film uncovers dark secrets, past traumas, and a suburban clash of epic proportions.
The ending is full of surprising discoveries, a twisty plot, and a sequel has already been greenlit.
Carrying out an act of kindness has never been riskier (or funnier) than in Paul Feig’s cautionary tale about doing a favor for a person you barely know. A Simple Favor, which is currently in Netflix’s Top 10, is a dark comedy delight that pits two drastically different women against each other. Thrust into a fight that, at first, seems to be for over guy, it ends up being so much more. A Simple Favor, based on Darcey Bell’s novel of the same name, with a script by Feig and Jessica Sharzer, boasts powerhouse actresses Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in the main roles. Kendrick’s quirky widow Stephanie and Lively’s confident working mom Emily immerse the audience in a housewife conspiracy full of secrets, mystery, and live-streaming drama that climaxes in a confrontation of epic suburban proportions.
A Simple Favor
Release Date August 29, 2018
Director Paul Feig
Cast Anna Kendrick , Ian Ho , Joshua Satine , Glenda Braganza , Andy Rannells , Kelly McCormack
Runtime 119
Writers Jessica Sharzer , Darcey Bell
Tagline Can you keep a secret?
What Happens in ‘A Simple Favor’?
A Simple Favor is about people who clash at a precise moment when past traumas come back to haunt them. After Stephanie and Emily bond over their sons being classmates, a thread is pulled, first unveiling Stephanie’s affair with her half-brother (gasp!). She also feels responsible for her husband’s mental instability which led to a car accident that killed both him and her step-brother. While the other moms at school underestimate Stephanie for her geeky and prudish ways, Emily sees her for what she truly is – another lost soul just like her. This makes her open up as well, confessing her frustration about having to adjust to suburban life and her husband Sean’s (Henry Golding) lack of success and ambition which has led them to have financial problems.
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But while Emily might look at Stephanie as some sort of equal, that doesn’t mean she’ll let the opportunity to take advantage of her pass by. Requesting for – ahem – a simple favor, she asks Stephanie to pick up her son and take care of him for an afternoon while Sean is on a work trip aborad. The afternoon turns into days, which becomes a missing person report. The search for Emily ensues until police confirm her death after finding her drowned in a lake. Grief brings Sean and Stephanie together, which evolves into a relationship that puts them in the spotlight of gossip and speculation. Another side effect comes in the shape of Emily’s vlog channel rising to fame from both a morbid and compassionate audience.
Why Did Emily Fake Her Death in ‘A Simple Favor’?
Before finding out about Emily’s death, Stephanie goes snooping around her office. Emily’s favor originally was for her to be able to go on a work trip to Miami, but the eventual discovery of her body in Michigan starts to tell a different story. Having been found in a summer camp, the answer as to why she was there opens a whole different Pandora’s box. There’s also the added mystery of there being copious amounts of alcohol and heroin in Emily’s system. After snooping some more, Stephanie discovers that Emily’s real name is Hope. Along with her twin sister Faith, she attended that camp in her early years. The twins escaped the clutches of their abusive father by setting their house on fire, killing him. Thus, they ran away and changed their names, leading separate lives for 14 years.
In the present day, Faith, now a drug addict, tries to blackmail Emily for a million dollars by threating to go to the authorities about the fire. Emily meets her at the camp and, seeing no other way out, drowns her in the lake and it is Faith’s body that is found. Emily put her own wedding ring on Faith’s finger to make it appear as if she died so that her family could cash in on her life insurance policy. A delicate web (with involuntary hilarious results) is spun carefully by Emily herself after she decides to start appearing to her son Nicky (Ian Ho). She then starts sending messages to Stephanie, up to the point of calling her. This spurs Stephanie on to learn even more about the truth of Emily and her past. While Stephanie’s curiosity could be interpreted as an obsession with Emily, it leans more to be a mix of admiration towards her, culpability for taking over her life, and the ambition to gain the confidence she’s always been lacking. What Emily doesn’t see coming is that Stephanie is willing to challenge her and play the game by her rules.
‘A Simple Favor’ Has a Shocking, Twisty Finale
Image via Lionsgate
Complicating the situation even more, an insurance policy on Emily had just been issued before her (faked) death. This puts Sean in the spotlight both with the insurance company and the police. Emily seemingly recruits Stephanie to incriminate Sean. In an argument that ends with Stephanie shooting Sean, Emily sees right through them and the fake shooting, telling them she knows they’ve colluded with the police and that she already got rid of their hidden microphones. Emily proceeds to deliver a villain monologue, confessing to her sister’s murder, and detailing how she’ll kill them both and make it look like a passionate murder-suicide.
But A Simple Favor isn’t only an engaging mystery, it’s also a film about the student surpassing the master. Stephanie now admits to having staged the whole scene. She was prepared for Emily to destroy the police’s microphones, so she live-streamed everything through her vlog instead. Emily, seeing her impending doom, tries to run away and – in a scene reminiscent of Mean Girls, where the queen bee gets dethroned by the newcomer quite literally by a bus – gets run over by Stephanie’s friend Darren (Andrew Rannells). The film closes with Sean getting out of his rut and finally releasing another novel. Emily ends up in jail, where she adjusts pretty well to competitive basketball games. Stephanie, in turn, continues with her now-famous vlog, which has been acquired by Condé Nast to be developed as a morning show. Her side job? Having her followers bring her cold cases, with 30 of them now solved.
Is ‘A Simple Favor’ Getting a Sequel?
Image via Lionsgate
Feig’s comedy is a wild ride. Two fully-developed characters with defining traumas and ambitions of their own dominate the story – so you might find yourself rooting for one and then the other from one scene to another. Kendrick and Lively execute this suburban adventure masterfully, and it leaves you craving for more. Prayers have been heard, as a sequel has already been greenlit, through a collaboration between Amazon MGM Studios and Lionsgate. The star-studded A Simple Favor 2 will see most of the original cast returning, while also adding Allison Janney, Elizabeth Perkins, and Alex Newell, among others. Details haven’t been scarce, as the premise already indicates the story will take place in Italy, with the new mystery revolving around an assassination at a wedding. How does everyone fit into this new story? We’ll just have to wait and see.
A Simple Favor is streaming on Netflix in the U.S.
Watch on Netflix