Another Simple Favor (SXSW) Review: a fun lark but not as good as the original

While not a patch on the solid original, Another Simple Favor is still good fun.

PLOT: Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick), who’s reinvented herself as an amateur investigator (as well as being a mommy blogger), is convinced by her old foe, Emily (Blake Lively), to attend her extravagant destination wedding in Capri.

REVIEW: A Simple Favor was a surprisingly effective potboiler, anchored by two ace performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. Plus, it had snappy direction from Paul Feig and a tight script that somehow managed to take some vast cliches and make them feel fresh. As such, the only thing surprising about a sequel being made is that Amazon’s opting to premiere this on streaming, despite Lively’s last movie making $300 million worldwide – controversy be damned.

While not as inspired as the original and more of a retread than expected, the gorgeous scenery (well-photographed by John Schwartzman) and an especially good turn by Lively make it worthwhile. Emily Nelson is surely the best role of her career, with her getting more screen time than she did in the original, thanks to an added twist (which I won’t reveal here). While Lively looks terrific in her jaw-dropping wardrobe, she sinks her teeth into the camp aspect of the role, playing well off Kendrick, whose Stephanie is portrayed as a little less naive in this instalment.  

Most of the co-stars from the first movie return, with Henry Golding intriguingly cast against type. In the first film, his character, Sean, is presented as a bit of a trophy husband, but Golding’s charm is dialled down, with the character having gone to seed in the years since the last film. Oddly, he’s never been more likeable. 365 Days star Michele Morrone plays Emily’s mobbed-up, new would-be husband, but like Golding in the original, seems to have been cast to up the beefcake quotient more than anything else – which is understandable given the target audience.

Where the movie falters is in the inclusion of too many red herrings, including Allison Janney as Emily’s sinister aunt, who arrives with her addled mother (Elizabeth Perkins – filling in for Jean Smart) in tow. When you have someone like Lively having such a whale of a time playing a quasi-antagonist, it’s a shame they inevitably water her down somewhat (softening her rough edges way too much) to perhaps pave the way for a third instalment, which seems like a questionable proposition now.

It’s not that Another Simple Favor is bad – in its own way, the sequel is kind of fun. It’s just that it’s so unnecessary and seems to undo everything that made the original such a romp. Anna Kendrick’s Stephanie follows the same beats she did in the original, with her again being haunted by guilt over a traumatic death. In the first movie, it was her husband and half-brother/ lover. In this one, we find out that a case she was investigating led to the suicide of someone who may have been innocent, which would have given her an interesting wrinkle. Still, the movie seems afraid to commit to the notion that she is fallible. 

The film is also loaded with extraneous characters, with Alex Newell, Stephanie’s agent, tagging along on the European getaway for no reason and then being given absolutely nothing to do. The movie, which—like the first—embraces the camp aspect, goes overboard in its resolution, with everything wrapped up in too tidy a package.

However, the scenery is gorgeous, the leads are fun, and Feig’s thrown in some choice needle drops, including Ennio Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in the West theme. It’s absolutely watchable, if not a patch on the surprisingly rock-solid original. It should prove to be a big streaming hit for Prime Video, and while it’s not a movie that cried out to be made, taken as a lark, it’s good fun.