A Simple Favor (film): Difference between revisions

A Simple Favor is a 2018 American mystery drama film directed by Paul Feig from a screenplay by Jessica Sharzer, based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Darcey Bell. The film stars Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding and Andrew Rannells, and follows a small-town blogger who tries to solve the disappearance of her mysterious and rich best friend.

A Simple Favor was released in the United States on September 14, 2018, by Lionsgate. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics, with praise for the plot twists and performances of Kendrick and Lively.

The film begins with Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick), a single mother who runs a housewife-themed vlog, explaining the disappearance of her close friend Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) which happened five days before. The film then cuts to a flashback. Emily is a PR director whose son Nicky attends the same elementary school as Stephanie's son, Miles. On several occasions when the two sons wish to play together, Emily invites Stephanie to her upscale home in order to drink martinis. The two of them trade confessions, with Emily, whose personality is aggressive and vulgar, confessing to having had a threesome with her husband Sean (Henry Golding), who is an English professor, and his teaching assistant. Stephanie proceeds to confess that, after her father died when she was a teenager, she got into a sexual relationship with her half-brother. After Stephanie married, her husband suspected the relationship, and upon arguing with her half-brother during a car ride, the car crashed and both of them died. Emily complains about the lack of success of her husband's writing career, and how they are close to bankruptcy because of profligate spending. One day, Emily asks Stephanie to do the simple favor of retrieving Nicky from school. However, Emily then vanishes. Sean and Stephanie report her disappearance to the police, who discover that Emily rented a white car prior to cutting off contact.

One of the fans of Stephanie's vlog reports having seen Emily in Michigan. There, her car is discovered near a lake, and her drowned body found under the surface. On the day of the funeral, Sean and Stephanie, both depressed, decide to begin an affair, and Stephanie begins to live at Sean's house. This greatly upsets Emily, who is apparently alive and in hiding, so she responds by sending Stephanie an insulting message, and sneaking into the house to rearrange the closet. Stephanie responds by conducting her own investigation. She tracks down Diana Hyland, an artist who had painted a nude portrait of Emily. Diana explains that Emily had used the name Claudia during their relationship, and that the woman had accepted a large amount of financial assistance from Diana, only to suddenly disappear. Diana gives Stephanie an old t-shirt from a summer camp which Emily had attended. Visiting the summer camp, Stephanie discovers in old yearbooks that Emily is an identical twin, whose real name is either Hope or Faith McLanden. She then meets with Emily's mother, who explains that at sixteen years old, the twins had set fire to the house, killing their father, and had run away.

Stephanie inserts a coded message into her vlog to request a meeting with Emily. The two meet at Emily's grave, where Emily explains that, after running away from home, her twin-sister (Faith) became a drug addict and the two lost contact. By contrast, Emily (Hope) worked hard, occasionally resorting to dishonesty in order to get ahead, and built a career for herself. Sixteen years later, her sister reemerged and asked for a meeting. Emily asked Stephanie to pick up Nicky, then went to Michigan to meet Faith, whereupon the latter blackmailed her for money. In response, Emily murdered her sister, and decided to use the opportunity to disappear, thereby allowing her husband and son to collect four million dollars in life-insurance money. However, to Emily's dismay, Stephanie's discovery that Emily had a twin-sister has created enough suspicion that the insurance company is reluctant to pay out. Stephanie is angered by Sean's affection for his teaching assistant, and by his readiness to disown her upon discovering that Emily is still alive. Thus, Stephanie agrees to help Emily reappear to the public and frame Sean for insurance fraud, allowing Emily to walk away with her son.

Emily walks into a police station, claiming that Sean battered her and forced her to fake her death. Sean is arrested, indicted, and released on bail. However, Stephanie has a change of heart, and works with Sean to extract a confession from Emily by feigning an argument in front of her, while microphones are recording in the background. Stephanie even shoots Sean with a fake gun. However, Emily predicts their ruse and cuts the microphones ahead of time. Emily then confesses to the crimes, and, holding the pair at gunpoint, tells them of her intention to kill both of them and make it look like a murder-suicide. She shoots Sean in the shoulder and turns the gun on Stephanie, at which point Stephanie reveals that she has a hidden camera live-streaming the entire conversation to her vlog. Emily runs into the street, and attempts to shoot Stephanie when the latter gives chase, but Darren, a fellow parent of the school, rams Emily with his car, severely injuring her whereupon the police arrive and arrest her. The film concludes with text explaining that Emily was sentenced to 20 years in prison and has adjusted well to prison-life. Sean was cleared of all charges, and eventually became chair professor at a major university. Stephanie's vlog expanded to millions of viewers and won multiple awards, and the success of her investigations led her to pursue a career as a part-time private detective.

In January 2016, it was announced that 20th Century Fox had bought the film rights to author Darcey Bell's novel A Simple Favor prior to the book's publication. The story had been pitched as being similar to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Creative Artists Agency represented the movie rights in the deal with Fox.^[4]

In June 2017, it was announced that A Simple Favor would be extricated from 20th Century Fox and instead be distributed by Lionsgate. It was also announced that the film would be directed by Paul Feig with Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively announced as being "in talks" for the lead roles.^[5] On July 26, 2017, Kendrick and Lively were confirmed for the lead roles while Henry Golding joined the cast as the husband of Lively's character.^[6] Linda Cardellini was later announced as having been cast in an undisclosed role in September 2017.^[7] Andrew Rannells, Jean Smart, and Rupert Friend were revealed to have been cast in the film later.^[8]

A Simple Favor commenced principal production on August 14, 2017, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.^[6]

The film was released on September 14, 2018.^[9]

On May 1, 2018, Blake Lively deleted all pictures from her Instagram account in order to promote the film.^[10] The first teaser trailer was released on May 2, 2018,^[11] followed by the second teaser trailer, which was released on May 24.^[12]

In the United States and Canada, A Simple Favor was released alongside White Boy Rick, Unbroken: Path to Redemption and The Predator, and is projected to gross $12–15 million from 3,102 theaters in its opening weekend.^[13] It made $900,000 from Thursday night previews.^[2]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 82% based on 98 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Twisty, twisted, and above all simply fun, A Simple Favor casts a stylish mommy noir spell strengthened by potent performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively."^[14] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[15] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 76% positive score.^[2]

• A Simple Favor at IMDb