The Gist
Kendrick plays Stephanie Sommers a widowed mother who is doing the best she can to bring up her children while hosting a semi-popular vlog, although according to her supposed friends the popularity of the blog is largely because of people tuning in to have a laugh at her. With no really close friends she is then surprised when she meets one of the mother’s at her son’s elementary school, the very successful and very secretive Emily (Blake Lively).
The two quickly become friends but when Emily suddenly disappears Stephanie finds herself wanting to investigate the disappearance especially after she begins a relationship with Emily’s husband, writer-turned-lecturer, Sean (Henry Golding – Crazy Rich Asians), and the Police seem hellbent on pinning the crime on him. What Stephanie uncovers though is a web of lies and deceit that leads her down a path where anyone could be lying or anyone could be at fault.
The Review
I don’t think there is a worse feeling then when you hype yourself up about a movie and then watch it only to be bitterly disappointed. Worse still is when the film actually shows promise during it but then something happens to sour the experience. That just happened to me with A Simple Favour. I was so keen to check out this film but by the time the end credits were rolling I realised that was being badly let down. From the trailer it looked like another Gone Girl and better still it starred two of my favourite actresses – Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Up In The Air) and Blake Lively (The Shallows, The Age Of Adaline)… but boy oh boy did this film go horribly wrong.
Kendrick plays Stephanie Sommers a widowed mother who is doing the best she can to bring up her children while hosting a semi-popular vlog, although according to her supposed friends the popularity of the blog is largely because of people tuning in to have a laugh at her. With no really close friends she is then surprised when she meets one of the mother’s at her son’s elementary school, the very successful and very secretive Emily (Blake Lively).
The two quickly become friends but when Emily suddenly disappears Stephanie finds herself wanting to investigate the disappearance especially after she begins a relationship with Emily’s husband, writer-turned-lecturer, Sean (Henry Golding – Crazy Rich Asians), and the Police seem hellbent on pinning the crime on him. What Stephanie uncovers though is a web of lies and deceit that leads her down a path where anyone could be lying or anyone could be at fault.
For a majority of the film it does work. There is genuine suspense when Emily first disappears, especially when people start to see her and claim that she hasn’t been killed at all. If the screenwriters and director Paul Feig (The Heat, Bridesmaids) were aiming to enter into the same league as Gone Girl then they certainly were heading in the right direction. Most would expect that perhaps the film goes wrong when the secrets start to unravel, but now somehow the script makes that part work with believable twists that keep the story moving along really well. Where this film goes horribly is when it tries to introduce traces of comedy. Now sometimes a mixture of comedy into another genre can work, Feig himself has done it in the past with films like The Heat where he manages to mix action and comedy pretty well. But here when he tries to mix comedy into a murder mystery it feels dangerously out of place and there was actually a time in the closing stages of the film when I groaned as an attempt at slap-stick humour in one of the film’s most vital scenes falls flat on its face and reminds everybody that sadly this movie is becoming a sad farce that has completely undone all the goodness from earlier.
Going away and thinking about the film makes things even worse. After I did so I realised that the film also commits another unforgivable crime as well. One poor character in this film does absolutely nothing to wrong with anybody but somehow ends up having his whole life ruined. Now you can understand a greedy, malicious character doing this to another but when you read the cards at the end of this film it highlights the fact that there is no happy ever after for this guy, even though the actions of other characters throughout the film suggested that he should have. It makes absolutely no sense and just leaves a sour taste in the mouths of the audience.
The sad thing about the script going to pieces like that is it drags down its leads with it. Kendrick is no stranger to both drama and comedy. In fact she managed to mix drama, comedy and action together recently in the brilliant Mr. Right. Here she does remarkably well early on, in fact she is in Oscar form, but then when the film goes to pieces it feels like her character is just left floundering. Blake Lively does get off a little easier as she manages to play the ‘bitch’ remarkably well but then even her acting prowess is tested by the weak and completely ridiculous ending.
The Verdict
A Simple Favour begins with so much promise but ultimately just falls away and becomes a film with a dangerously stupid finale that almost insults the intelligence of the viewers who have decided to stick with it. The saddest part is the film did show promise early and both Kendrick and Lively looked like they were in award-winning form. Comedy does have a place but it certainly wasn’t in this film.
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