‘Another Simple Favor’ Review: A Deliciously Fun Time

Thanks to the effervescent chemistry from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, alongside a story that knows it shouldn’t take itself too seriously, Paul Feig makes his first good movie since ‘A Simple Favor’.

It’s been some time since Paul Feig delivered something worthwhile. Funnily enough, the last time I enjoyed something out of him was the first A Simple Favor. With the sequel, Another Simple Favor, Feig seemingly finds the joy of making a chaotic, often messy large-scale soap opera that gets more compellingly over-the-top with each new plot development and revelations it bludgeons to the audience at a mile-a-minute pace. In lesser hands, this could’ve made a film like this completely vulnerable, but Feig seems to be astute enough to know that such a maximalist denouement desperately needs the soap treatment, à la Un posto al sole.

Maybe that’s why the sequel is set in the lush island of Capri. While it may not look as enveloping as Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, Feig and costume designer Renée Ehrlich Kalfus still know that such a comedy needs lots of style, translated in the immaculate fits Blake Lively wears throughout its two-hours as Emily Nelson/Hope McLanden, a convicted criminal, who, after the events of the first film, was sentenced to twenty years in prison for the murder of her father and sister Faith (also played by Lively). Out on parole, her eyes are now set to marry the extravagantly rich Dante Versano (Michele Morrone), a rich man with connections to one of Italy’s most powerful gangs.

Making amends for her imprisonment, Emily invites Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) to Capri, which she reluctantly accepts. With her assistant (played by Alex Newell), the pair travel to Italy, where they meet Emily’s fiancé, and reunite with her ex-husband, Sean Townsend (Henry Golding) and son Nicky (Ian Ho). Of course, this being A Simple Favor, the wedding suddenly turns sour when a double-murder occurs during the ceremonies, and Stephanie is targeted as the prime suspect. She would have some motives, considering what occurred in the first film, right?

Obviously, she is innocent, and the bulk of Another Simple Favor’s last hour consists of her trying to figure out exactly who committed the murders. Could it be Emily herself, or her family members who flew in to Capri for the wedding, mother Margaret (played by Elizabeth Perkins, doing OK work replacing Jean Smart, but can never reach the level the Hacks actor brought in the first film), Aunt Linda (Allison Janney), the rival mob family attending the wedding, or perhaps an FBI agent tailing Stephanie from her book signing to Italy?

Feig, alongside writers Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis, take pleasure in staging these overtly dramatic murders and revealing each story development as if it’s the most important twist in the world. It’s not, and the plot overcomplicates itself so quickly that its admittedly simple premise turns into a headache-inducing nightmare. However, through Feig’s approach, especially in his A Simple Favor duology, this is more of a feature than a bug. Sure, some scenes go on for far too long, including a “truth serum” conversation between Stephanie and Dante’s mother, Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci), that contains lots of dead air interspersed with one or two funny bits, but the bulk of its “revelations” remain terrifically entertaining, because everyone is fully aware of how unserious everything is, and how one should not take these dramatic turns too seriously.

Casting Allison Janney feels like a stroke of genius, because she can literally do anything and adapt her acting style based on the movie’s tone, whether a serious drama or a laugh-out-loud comedy. Another Simple Favor teeters on the edge of both high-spirited comedy and knife-sharpening melodrama, which means that the Academy Award-winning actress will be able to showcase both sides of her personality perfectly. Her comedic timing is spot-on, and we immediately buy into the more nonsensical revelations, simply because of how Janney shifts her acting to respond to whatever crazy turn the story takes, leading to a satisfying head-splattering finale that harkens back to the great giallos of the 1970s.

Anyone watching A Simple Favor, though, isn’t necessarily doing so for the bevy of supporting characters that populate Feig’s film (although everyone has their time to shine), but for the rock-solid alchemy between Kendrick and Lively. I’ve often discussed how Lively’s insistence at making her acting roles an extension of the commercial brand she wants to convey has sunk her career to new lows (see the egregious product placement in It Ends with Us), but she has always been one to watch when the director is fully aware of her talents as an actor. That’s why Emily/Hope and Faith was the best performance of her career, which she continues in another devilishly fun turn where she gets to wear the most immaculately designed fits of the year. Even a scene so cheap, a wedding ceremony set to Ennio Morricone’s theme for Once Upon a Time in the West, works because the costumes are so staggering that it’s hard to not put an ‘awards pundit’ hat and campaign it hard for an Oscar nomination.

Jokes aside, Lively’s character is in perfect control of what she wears, and how she presents herself through these highly expressive and exuberant costumes. Obviously, it makes Emily an overconfident protagonist, which balances out the more down-to-earth aspects of Stephanie, who once again gets stuck in a situation that gets blown out of proportion. Yet, Feig never repeats the approach he took in the first film. He instead doubles down on what worked best (Kendrick and Lively), while simultaneously making everything bigger, more rambunctious, and in-your-face. And for the first time since 2018, he succeeds.

He succeeds because his actors are clearly having fun wearing the most incredible outfits in the most stunning locations. He succeeds because he knows how talented his cast is, and lets them do the work for him, even though some sequences may stall the momentum. More importantly, though, he succeeds because he knows what kind of movie he’s working on – one that lets him tap into the aesthetic (and musical) sensibilities he enjoys creating a gossipy slice of Italian melodrama that’s as messy and as tumultuous as any great soap opera the country has released. Despite having enjoyed the first A Simple Favor, my expectations for the sequel were slightly lowered, considering the awful streak of films Feig has been on. However, with Another Simple Favor, he reminds himself what made him fall in love with cinema in the first place and, in turn, releases his first good movie in seven years. Maybe he should make another one, for posterity’s sake.

Grade: [B+]