Perky dowdy mommy vlogger Stephanie Smothers and aloof glamorous PR director Emily Nelson were worlds apart in personality. However, the two hooked up and became friends because their little boys Miles and Nicky were best friends in school. One day, Emily called Stephanie to ask a simple favor to pick Nicky up from school because she was attending to an emergency at work and her husband Sean was in London. Emily never came back to retrieve her Nicky. Stephanie used her mommy vlog to ask her viewers' help to find Emily.
In the past years, there had been similar suburban housewife mystery films coming out in cinemas based on best-selling novels. These were: "Gone Girl" (David Fincher, 2014) from the 2012 book by Gillan Flynn, and "The Girl on the Train" (Tate Taylor, 2016) from the 2015 book by Paula Hawkins. "A Simple Favor" (Paul Feig, 2018) was cut from the same fabric, as adapted from the 2017 book by Darcey Bell.
Unlike the previous two films which were serious dramas, director Feig gives "A Simple Favor" a distinct sense of female-centric humor. This is not surprising since most of Feig's most memorable directorial jobs -- namely "Bridesmaids" (2011), "The Heat" (2013), "Spy" (2015) and "Ghostbusters" (2016) -- involved women in rollicking fun action adventures. His two female lead characters here were so different from each other, yet seemingly clicked as friends. Both had major secrets to hide which further added flavor to the bubbly brew.
Anna Kendrick projected that cute annoying fussbudget vibe she always had that was right up the alley of Stephanie's personality. You just imagine her "Pitch Perfect" character Becca as a housewife Youtuber sharing household tips and tasty recipes, and your expectations won't be too far from what you actually see. She is one of those hyper-active mommies you see at your kids' schools who seem to lead a perfect life of milk and cookies.
Blake Lively, on the other hand, had an effortlessly classy, gorgeous, sexy, electric and mysterious screen presence even if Emily was just standing still up there. Even in a simple scene like when Stephanie was first invited into their big house, Emily started removing her blazer and later a fake collar and cuffs -- Lively was breathtaking to watch. No wonder Stephanie, Sean and everyone else, was irresistibly drawn to her.
Henry Golding is fresh from his big screen debut in "Crazy Rich Asians", and he plays another crazy rich person here. Sean Townsend-Nelson was not expressly labelled as an Asian, but his son Nicky was played by an Asian kid Ian Ho. Golding was not even in the initial promotional posters of this film, but was just photoshopped in local posters following the huge success of "CRA." Golding radiated a good boy feeling about him. so you cannot believe he'd do anything bad, even if he already did.
I enjoyed the twisting and turning of this mystery-thriller. It was fun, dark and ruthless all the way as a new angle comes out one after the other, so you never can tell when or how it was going to end and that kept you hanging on. It did feel a bit overstretched towards the climax, and the ending was so over-the-top, but anyhow, these did not really affect my enjoyment of the film as a whole. 7/10.
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