A SIMPLE FAVOR: Not That Sexy, Clever Or Cool

Directors can be craftspeople of a chosen genre, mastering a spot in cinema and becoming synonymous with it – think Argento, Anderson or Hitchc*ck and a distinct style and mood will come to mind. Then there are directors who can traverse time and space within the frame, weaving from different worlds and nailing any genre, like Kubrick who could move from space opera to period drama to war movie seamlessly.

For those directors who have carved their particular celluloid corner, it must be tempting to change tack, to stretch those creative muscles and try something different. This must have been what was going through Paul Feig’s mind when he decided to direct a film that is not, first and foremost a comedy.

He has directed many comedies that occupy different themes from female driven behemoth Bridesmaids  to the giddy delight of Spy to the silly supernatural with his female led version of Ghostbusters. But with his new film A Simple Favor, it is somewhat of a departure for Feig, it is a film, that whilst trying to create laughs within the narrative, is something altogether a lot darker. Sadly it is also something altogether a lot more of a mess, not even a hot one but more of a damp misfiring puddle.

Sly Moves at the School Gates

Based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Darcey Bell, Feig’s adaptation begins with a 60s inspired title sequence complete with retro French music, hinting at a sexy Gallic style that the film is trying to emulate. We then cut to Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), a single mother who is in the middle of creating her latest content for her Mummy lifestyle vlog, in which she is trying to focus on her latest craft/recipe inspired post. But Stephanie gets distracted with the current plight of her ‘best friend’ Emily (Blake Lively) who has been missing for five days and begins to tell the viewers her story.

The narrative then goes back to the start where we see that Stephanie is an over enthusiastic participant at her child’s school, gently ridiculed by the other parents for making them look inferior. One day when picking up her son Miles, she meets Emily, who is introduced to the audience in chic slow- mo and who is ludicrously polished for the school run to pick up her own son Nicky.

As their children are friends and want a playdate, the two women strike up a friendship through a series of boozy c*cktail afternoons where they swap secrets. Stephanie becomes intoxicated by Emily, seduced by her glamourous lifestyle, trendy home, her attractive husband Sean (Henry Golding) and her intriguingly aloof aura. So, when Emily asks Stephanie for a simple favor, to pick up Nicky after school one day, she doesn’t give it a second thought and is happy to be the dutiful friend.

But when Emily doesn’t return, and days begin to pass, the police are called in to investigate her disappearance and Stephanie takes matters into her own hands and turns amateur sleuth. As she begins digging into Emily’s life, Stephanie realises not is all as it seems, her loyalty to their so-called friendship is tested and the lines of what she believed to be real begins to unravel all around her.

Pitched Imperfect

It can be hard to juggle different styles within a film and A Simple Favor falls foul to this balancing act, it just doesn’t know what it wants to be, veering from comedy to dark mystery, its tone is so uneven that it fails to land any convincing genre. You can see what Paul Feig was reaching for; a cheeky, sexy mystery, the diet coke version of Gone Girl. But Feig has none of the glacial visual panache of Fincher and whilst he is usually able to land the jokes, in this muddled narrative they fall flat.

It is a film that think it’s far sexier, cleverer and cooler than it actually is and this is one of the worst attitudes a film can have when you present it to an audience. Its twists and reveals are neither intriguing nor ingenious and by the time the big ‘reveal’ arrives you will neither care, nor are convinced.

A Simple Favor also tries to channel a frothy, dark European film but has none of the Gallic flair that someone like Francois Ozon could pull off. Instead it feels like someone has bought the rights to a cheap version of the superior female led crime novels that have become popular in recent years and just thrown some nice costumes at it to patch over the gaping cracks of its narrative shortcomings.

Opportunity Gone Girls

So, if the plot and tone of A Simple Favor is off kilter, perhaps the performances can save it? It pains me to say no, when in this cinematic landscape it is encouraging to see a female centric story on our screens, but this film squanders any room for the actresses to shine. Blake Lively, so excellent in The Town and who was a lot of fun in The Shallows, seems to have taken two steps back on her big screen journey. As Emily she is nothing more than a vacuous clothes horse sending her acting credentials back to the Gossip Girl era, simply turning up in designer gear and pouting suggestively will not cut it with a modern audience who know you can do more.

Anna Kendrick has more to do as Stephanie, whose character appears to begin as a devoted mother, but has a dark side beneath baking zucchini cakes and upscaling shabby chic items. But she feels like a missed opportunity and a deeply unlikeable person, as soon as her friend disappears, she is quick to take her place in Emily’s household and her son is all but jettisoned from the narrative in favor of Nancy Drew capers and 50 Shades-lite fumbles. Those who, for reasons that evade me, buy into the mini cult of Kendrick will no doubt find her antics hilarious but the rest of us will find her an irritating character with no redeeming features to route for.

Stephanie is selfish, needy and clearly unhappy with her own life that she has to find a distraction in someone else’s. It is telling that as the mystery of Emily continues, her subscribers on her vlog surge, the increased popularity giving her something she clearly craves despite the cutesy mum exterior. This could have been used as an interesting comment on the fascination of poking into other people’s lives to turn away from our own, how we want to see the murky corners of the world just to feel something like the recent millennial hipster mystery Search Party. But A Simple Favor has nothing of merit to say, it is just a bunch of unlikeable people acting in a variety of outlandish ways.

It wants to be a sexy c*cktail of a film, the one you order in a bar when you want to be cool but instead it’s the remnants of a watered-down beverage that was mixed by someone who didn’t have a clue how to handle the recipe.

A Simple Favor: Conclusion

It might seem fun to trash a film but as an ardent cinema goer, it is never fun to come out of a film feeling a sense of crushing disappointment. Luckily this is usually in the minority, but A Simple Favor is the biggest misfire I have witnessed in a while.

Some credit must go to Paul Feig for trying to unshackle from the comedy ties and try to do something different. But he would have been best doing himself a favor and avoiding this subpar Gone Girl wannabe dud. Rather than adding a new string to his bow, he simply dispels the old age notion that a change is as good as a rest with a film that is dreadfully tiresome.

Do you like when a director changes their tone? Will you give A Simple Favor a shot?

A Simple Favor is now in UK and US cinemas.