Another Simple Favor
by Jessica Sharzer, Laeta Kalogridis
There’s a lot of things I could write about Another Simple Favor. I could write about whether or not Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively get along with each other! I could write about our current societal obsession with True Crime! I could write about how the conversation about mommy vlogging has changed since 2018! I could write about stereotypes about Italians – we aren’t all in the mob! Some of us are freelance writers!
But I’m not going to write about any of those things because those things require thought and this is very much not a movie to which you should apply any thought whatsoever. This is a movie that you watch saying, “Oh, so pretty!” It is very pretty, it is very fun, and it does not have a single thought in its perfectly coiffed head.
A Simple Favor came out in 2018 and it’s one of my favorite movies. Although it’s gloriously trashy and ridiculous, it does have a thought in its head – several, in fact. For me, what makes the movie have staying power is Stephanie’s character arc. Stephanie is played by Anna Kendrick and is a widowed stay-at-mom who is trying to build a business as a vlogger. She becomes friends with Emily, played by Blake Lively, and as toxic and horrible as Emily clearly is, she still gives Stephanie some excellent advice. The mutual fascination between Emily and Stephanie, and the push-pull between Stephanie seeing Emily as empowering versus pure undiluted poison, is utter magic.
As someone who is very similar to Stephanie in terms of social anxiety, I still get a thrill every time Emily says, “Stop saying you’re sorry. It’s a fucked up female habit. You don’t have to apologize for anything, ever.”
Well I mean – “ever” is a strong statement, one that is made by a narcissistic alcoholic murderer, so maybe we want to soften that advice just a tad, but my God, I love that movie so much.
If you haven’t seen A Simple Favor then not only should you see it before you watch Another Simple Favor, but you should see it before you read the rest of this review because the entire review is a spoiler for the first movie.
Another Simple Favor begins several years after the ending of the first film. Stephanie has written a book about Emily, who appears at one of her book tour talks. Emily has been released from prison early and wants Stephanie to be her maid-of-honor at her wedding to Dante Versano, her extremely wealthy fiance, on the island of Capri. Emily has also invited her ex-husband, Sean (Henry Golding, dripping with drunken bitterness). Dante’s mother, who hates Emily, arranges for a surprise visit from Emily’s dotty mom (Elizabeth Perkins), and Aunt Linda (Allison Janney, gleefully chewing scenery).
So there’s a lot of personalities on the island and they all have amazing clothes. At one point Emily wears a hat that is bigger than her entire body. I want to live in it, like a fashionable tent. Stephanie has also levelled up fashion-wise since the first movie. At one point she wears pajamas that match the wallpaper in her very fancy suite which is certainly some kind of a thing. I don’t know who was in charge of Anna Kendrick’s hair on set but they deserve an Oscar – nay – a Nobel Prize.
This movie is often very funny – can we get Anna Kendrick high on truth serum at least once in everything she appears in from now on, please? Sometimes it’s wonderfully weird. It’s convolutedly clever. But honestly, it’s mostly pretty. The clothes are either wonderfully pretty or wonderfully outrageous. The hotel where most scenes take place – pretty. The outdoor meals with floral centerpieces and candles and what have you – pretty. People – pretty. Island – beautiful, of course.
The big problem with this movie is a lack of emotional stakes. No one goes through a character arc – Emily does somewhat but not very much. End-of-movie Emily and start of movie Emily are pretty much the same person. Stephanie doesn’t change at all. They are super fun to watch, but no moment of murder and mayhem is as thrilling as the one in the first movie in which Emily spills gin on the floor and says to Stephanie, who reflexively reaches to wipe it up, “Don’t you dare touch that washcloth.”
A lot of the movie is kind of a grab bag of stuff. Inept FBI agent? Slows the movie down, and just why? I will believe the most deranged things on offer in this movie but I don’t believe that the character who is supposed to be an FBI agent is an FBI agent (admittedly, no one else does, either). On the other hand, we have Allison Janney as…well I can’t even say except that I love her, and we have a gorgeous angry mafia boss mother-in-law, who doesn’t love that?
I’m not sorry that I watched Another Simple Favor. I enjoyed it! I had a great time! But I doubt that it will become a movie I go back to again and again – unless I just want to have pretty things in the background while I do other stuff, which is a pleasure that can’t be over-rated.