What follows is an unapologetically tawdry, occasionally campy and blessedly gonzo thriller that, in an almost casual fashion, throws in everything including the kitchen sink. For the record, the trailers aren't nearly as spoilery as I feared. From here we get the usual "What happened to Emily?" schtick, where dark (and mundane) secrets are revealed, Emily's husband (Henry Golding, yes that Henry Golding) tries to avoid suspicion and Stephanie ends up a de-facto part in Emily's bereaved family. Then again, nor does Kendrick's almost manic Stephanie fit in with the other suburban moms, and she's referencing Emily as "my best friend" after a few social calls. The plot thickens when Emily asks Stephanie to pick up her kid from school and then never returns home. Peanut and a 007 villain (Lively wears men's clothes better than most men), but she is a stressed-out and matriarchically-indifferent working mother who just doesn't mix with the rest of the stereotypical suburban moms. Emily merely appreciates having someone to socialize with who isn't going to judge her. Stephanie immediately takes to being in the presence of this majestic young woman. With it, Paul Feig announces that Jaume Collet-Serra isn't the only studio director who can make the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock proud.Īnna Kendrick plays Stephanie, a widowed mother and passionate mommy vlogger who ends up briefly befriending a wealthy and glamorous working mother (Blake Lively) when their sons become friends at school. The picture works because it is a good story, well told and capably performed by a game cast. It's not a prestige flick, it's not a serious drama, but it also avoids holier-than-thou genre meta-commentary or patronizing winking. It offers things that used to be the bread-and-butter of the industry, namely glamorous movie stars looking like a million bucks and getting caught up in a twisty narrative. As Stephanie cautions, “S ecrets are like margarine - e asy to spread, bad for the heart.Based on Darcy Bell's novel, the Jessica Sharzer-penned and Paul Feig-directed A Simple Favor is a delicious little bit of unapologetic pulp fiction. Or maybe that thumping is just a side-effect of the fun. And when Golding’s Sean does comes home, the couple pounce on each other, making the pulses pound of everyone who eager to see the overnight leading man of “Crazy Rich Asians” in a nother passionate clinch. Later, she casually mentions an erotic encounter with Sean’s female teaching assistant, so that Feig can layer a will-they-or-won’t-they tension over scenes of the two women boozing on the couch. When she threatens to cure Stephanie’s “ female habit” of over-apologizing with a slap, you believe her. ( C o s tu mer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus gets a special citation for Emily’s menswear-inspired wardrobe, striking enough that her closet becomes one of the film’s resonant set-pieces.) Lively’s Emily is both repellent and irresistible. Lively has her moments, too, many of them physical, like the way she rips off her tuxedo d ickey before serving up t wo cold martinis. But it’s enough, maybe more than enough, t o make us fascinated by this woman who first comes across like a cartoon. There’s a giant question about her that the film dangles and doesn’t answer, t he kind of thing I can imagine got cut because the audience comment cards would have gone crazy. One of the pleasures of Jessica Sharzer’s script, based on the novel by Darcey Bell, is that “A Simple Favor” gradually reveals Stephanie to us even as she’s discovering things about herself. Usually in an investigation thriller, the script spends its time shading in the missing person while the gumshoe is a stock character propelled forward like a bullet from a gun. Kendrick makes Stephanie naive without making her dumb, deliver ing her lines like an awkward A-student trying to suss if a C is a mistake. A catty parent who spots her posting pictures of Emily across town sneers, “Any excuse to use a stapler.” After all, Stephanie has a mother’s sense of knowing when someone is telling a fib, plus she’s detail-oriente d and exhaustingly activ e. By the second act, she’ll have settled into that house, with its dramatic nude portrait of Emily in eye-line of the fridge, and settled our doubts that a helicopter parent would make a great sleuth. Inside Emily’s monochromatic modernist home, Stephanie in her cute pink sweater is as glaringly out of place as a character l i ke Stephanie herself should be in a film that’s “Gone Girl” meets grade- schoolers. Their boys (Ho and Joshua Satine) are playmates, so the total opposites play at being friends, to o. Blake Lively ‘s Emily saunters into the lonely single mom’s life in slow motion, the camera gaping as she exits a Porsche wearing a pinstripe suit and stilettos to pick up her son.
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