A Simple Favor (Review)
A Simple Favor is Simply Great!
Alright, I’m man enough to admit that my reluctance to see Paul Feig‘s new movie, A Simple Favor, was unfounded and held out of spite. In all honesty, I loved a lot of what this film has to offer. Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick are spectacular in their roles and prove to be the solid backbone of this film. The only fault I can find is that it tries so hard to be a Hitchcockian thriller but never manages to clear that hurdle. Instead, the real strength of A Simple Favor is in its sense of humor and the fact that it doesn’t take itself as seriously as the trailers made it seem.
The performances are the key to A Simple Favor. Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick bring what could have been horribly obnoxious characters to life and are so good that it’s easy to hate them for all the right reasons. Lively especially manages to take a character filled with red flags from the beginning. For me the scene where she tells Kendrick to “never apologize” makes me cringe, because people like that exist in the world and they’re usually total psychopaths. Of course, she gets plenty more moments to throw up red flags, but Lively makes it all seem so effortless, which is a little terrifying. On the other side is Kendrick who plays a single mom who seems out of her depth. I love when Kendrick gets to play dorky characters because she does so in such sincerity that it’s hard not to find her completely and utterly charming.
Together their characters are opposite extremes when it comes to motherhood. Lively’s character is very much a terrible mother who doesn’t want to give up the life she is accustomed to as a no-nonsense hyper-aggressive PR fixer, while Kendrick’s identity is solely wrapped up in her identity as a mother and she’s lost her individuality as a woman. This creates an incredibly dynamic, which could have been heavy if not for the sense of humor the actresses kept throughout the film. Don’t get me wrong, A Simple Favor is very much a thriller, but it’s one filled with comedic moments that help the tone keep its edge. This because the film tackles a lot of intense themes and elements that are a bit much to take, it’s this humor though that keeps the film from succumbing to a juvenile sense of “darkness” that would have brought it across as cliche and trying too hard to set a tone.
I’ve never been a huge fan with Paul Feig. I did like Spy a lot, but Bridesmaids was hardly a triumph of feminism, and as much as I wanted to like the Ghostbusters reboot and fought all the internet trolls before it came out, it failed me as a fan. As a filmmaker though I’ve always had the opinion that his approach is very much like a fashion show, where it looks lovely and is enjoyable but it doesn’t have any real depth to it. With A Simple Favor though he showed a sort of depth that we never got with his previous work and I have to say I like this “dark side” of him. I’m hoping that he decides to stick to these types of films in the future because he’s incredibly well suited for them. If he does, I might just become a fan of his.
To call A Simple Favor “Hitchcockian” is a disservice to Alfred Hitchcock. Sure it’s full of twist and turns, but they’re much more soap opera-esque than what you might expect from the master of the modern thriller. There are certain things that you’ll never see coming, but that’s because a lot of the twists are simply absurd. That being said, A Simple Favor is a film that telegraphs a lot of its punches, and the ending is not only inevitable but easy to see coming. That being said if you stop trying to over think it and just let A Simple Favor wash over you then it’s an incredibly satisfying movie. It’s a lot of fun but doesn’t sacrifice any of its craftsmanship for cheap thrills or laughs. There are certainly some ups and downs when it comes to this movie, but without some downs, then there are no ups and that’s just the price you pay to create a truly enjoyable film.
A Simple Favor might not be the best movie in theaters right not from a star or a popcorn perspective. However, it’s an incredibly solid film and one that I wholeheartedly recommend. My expectations might have been low thanks to a terrible marketing campaign that painted this as an attempt a high brow thriller, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t blown away with the quality of, well, everything about A Simple Favor. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a film that I enjoyed tremendously and that means more to me than the mise-en-scene or the intricacies of the plot. I 100% endorse seeing this film and think it will find a way to speak to most audience members. I was genuinely surprised by this film, and definitely, think you will be too if you give it a chance.
