Simple Favor

Plot: Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) meets her young son's friend's Mom Emily (Blake Lively), who is a free-spirit and not typical. After a few visits, Stephanie agrees to babysit, but the Emily goes missing. Emily reports this on her Mommy Vlog (which is a plot device to recap the story, and to communicate how nerdy Stephanie is.) Stephanie asks around about Emily, who  has mysterious past. Emily is not traveling on business, but really rented a car and drove to [location cloaked]. Stephanie tells Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding), and in Emily's absence they start an affair. There are three good plot twists, and a final confrontation. In the end Emily puts it all on her Vlog. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Simple Favor is a darkly comic murder mystery. Not a lot of jokes or sitcom humor, but head-shaking absurdity instead. Director Feig gave the film a campy Noir vibe, and that kept the film from being too heavy. He called it Suburban Noir.

Anna Kendrick is likable and earnest, and earnestness is difficult acting. Blake Lively's role is strong and diabolical and anarchistic. Surprisingly, Henry Golding is only a necessary prop. Simple Favor is a two woman movie. I liked Gia Sandra as the hard-boiled feminist artist whose life was ruined by Emily.

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding

Directed by: Paul Feig

Written by: Jessica Sharzer based on the book by Darcey Bell. I checked it out on Amazon, and it starts just like the movie with a Vlog. I am tempted to read it because I like the absurdist tone of the movie. 

The Music: Jazzy orchestral music by Theodore Shapiro; more noticeable are the old-time French pop songs that give Noir mood, but still being foreign and out of place. 

The Visuals: Mostly talking inside in stylish kitchens. The giant raunchy picture of Emily that Gia Sandra's character Valerie painted is hard to forget. 

Rating: 3.0 stars, and maybe close to a 3.5. Likable and fun. I recommend it. No social message because caper movies never have a message. 

More: Director Paul Feng, known for Ghostbusters and Bridesmaids, says he likes to make genre pictures and then twist it. He likes to put extremely different people in genre-typic roles to watch the comedic contrast. He said that this movie is about booze and fine clothes, and that makes it his most personal movie (which I think is a self-depricating joke, but it's clever. )

Even More: Fieg said he read the book, and that he had to do it. " Here is more from the LA Times interview:

"Stephanie's such an A student," Feig agreed. "She's covering up this dark history she has by dressing really bright and fun and goofy. There's just something so nice about the contrast between what people think they're hiding [and how they present themselves]."

"I think it's kind of this beautiful metaphor for peeling back the layers of who someone is," Kendrick added. "In this movie, Emily has more literal secrets, but Stephanie has a lot of tricks up her sleeve that people who know her don't expect from her. The entire community thinks they have her figured out and it's nice to have a mystery as a backdrop via which to peel back the layers of her personality."

This is another poster design. I liked this one too. 

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