*Originally written October 9th, 2018*
Wow, what do I say about A Simple Favor? It's utter trash on every level, but at the same time it has so much fun with its mystery, concept and absurd amount of plot twists that I couldn't help but have so much fun with it. It feels like the Scary Movie spoof of Gone Girl, and it knows that, so it embraces it, while at the same time creates an oddly compelling mystery.
It always helps when you go into a film knowing nothing about it, apart from hearing the reviews were positive, I'd not seen a trailer or even known what the film was about, all I knew that is was directed by Paul Feig and stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. I had seen the poster, which for some reason gave me flashbacks to last year's Unforgettable....
Thankfully, this is much better than that, it's trashy and looks cheap, and it feels like it belongs in a different decade. I could easily see this made in the '90s adding to the list of films like Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction. There's clear inspirations to Hitchcock and Fincher that Feig wears on his sleeve. At one point I genuinely thought the twist at the end was going to be Fight Club.
Anna Kendrick is an actress I've never really liked, her presence just annoyed me and I don't know why, but here she is the best I've ever seen her, carrying along this mystery to find out what happened to her mysterious friend and dig up her past, finding increasingly insane and outrageous twists.
The mysterious friend in question, I'm not sure quite how to feel about. Blake Lively completely dominates the screen with her presence and outfits whenever she appears, playing the most psychotic and deranged character of her career. Imagine Gone Girl's Amy if it was a Lifetime film directed by Paul Feig. Her performance goes a little over the top towards the end, but I'm sure that was intentional with the tone and how absurd things got.
And boy do things get absurd by the end. There's a bit of a lag in the middle, but once that third act hits, it is full throttle chaos that spits a new plot twist at you every couple of minutes. I was shook at just how insane this got. It was utter trash and a lot didn't make sense, but it carried me along for the ride and I loved it for that.
I was pretty surprised at how toned down the comedy was for a Paul Feig film too, while it is primarily a mystery thriller, there are a few genuinely funny moments to level out the tone of A Simple Favor, without sinking to the overly crude tone of his other films. I'm even pretty sure the absolutely atrocious performances from the children was intention for a quick laugh. I couldn't comprehend how child acting this bad made it into the final cut of this film.
A Simple Favor is a hard film to judge, it's trash and it knows it, but at the same time it has so much fun with it and so does the audience. Plus it's got one of the most interesting performances of Blake Lively's career. I hope Feig continues to make more films in the tone of this.
7/10 Dans
A Simple Favor is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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