SXSW 2025 Review:
"Another Simple Favor"
Author Darcey Bell did not write a sequel to her 2017 best-selling murder mystery A Simple Favor. If she had, perhaps we would have been spared the sequel that is Another Simple Favor, a disappointing continuation of the 2018 film adaptation of Bell’s page-turner. This lacking and graceless follow up reunites the creative team that made A Simple Favor such a riveting and glamorous thriller: stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, director Paul Feig, and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer (now paired with Laeta Kalogridis). But all parties seem to have forgotten what made A Simple Favor work beyond the inspired pairing of Kendrick and Lively. A Simple Favor was elegantly executed, fabulously shot, tensely paced, and seeped in mystery. Another Simple Favor looks cheap and cheerless despite its beautiful locale, lacks suspense, and gets bogged down in a murder plot that is too gimmicky for its own good. More important, A Simple Favor was a stylish modern-day noir with a dark and twisted sense of humor, whereas Another Simple Favor struggles and fails to be a broadly comic murder mystery in the vein of Glass Onion. In Another Simple Favor, Kendrick’s true crime podcaster Stephanie Smothers is enjoying limited success with her book about her relationship with Lively’s convicted killer Emily Nelson. After being released from prison, Emily invites a surprised Stephanie to her wedding on the island of Capri, Italy. Of course, Emily is marrying into a Mafia wedding. As apprehensive as she is about the wedding invite, Stephanie reluctantly agrees to travel to Capri in the hopes it will boost sales of her book. Before Stephanie can order her first plate of Ravioli alla Caprese, one of the wedding guests is murdered in their hotel room. And Stephanie and Emily must bury their differences to find the murderer. Yes, Kendrick and Lively remain as delightful an odd couple in Another Simple Favor as they did in A Simple Favor. And the friction that fuels this toxic friendship keeps Another Simple Favor from becoming a relentless bore. But obviously the dynamic between the devoted mommy podcaster and the devilish fashionista has changed in Another Simple Favor. While she still remains somewhat obsessed with Emily, Stephanie views her frenemy with the suspicion reserved for a master manipulator and a cold-hearted killer. On the surface, Emily seems dismissive toward of Stephanie and her simple ways, but grudgingly respects her for matching wits with her and treats her as her equal in her own cheeky way. There remains healthy antagonism between Stephanie and Emily, which goes a long way to making the evolution of their relationships both essential and successful. But Another Simple Favor flounders when Feig and his screenwriters separate Stephanie and Emily as a result of the stale Mafia subplot. One completes the other in Another Simple Favor, we quickly learn to our dismay. Another Simple Favor also circles back to some of the dark revelations of its predecessor. But the sequel exploits Stephanie and Emily’s life-altering events for crass and squirm-inducing reasons. It’s an odd move to go where Another Simple Favor dares to go in facetious fashion, and it plays out like a bad punchline. Not even Emily’s glitzy wardrobe and the lovely Capri scenery can distract from the tawdry direction Another Simple Favor takes. It’s entirely possible that Feig et al. felt empowered to take this head-scratching creative risk because Another Simple Favor will debut on Amazon’s Prime Video. It is not hard to imagine bad of mouth hitting Another Simple Favor hard at the box office had it been made for a theatrical release. As it is, Another Simple Favor ends with the promise of another sequel. If such a sequel materializes, hopefully it will have a greater understanding of what made A Simple Favor such a not-so-simple pleasure than this insipid trip to Italy. Posted: March 19, 2025. Web site: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2025/films/2207531 |
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