The first Simple Favor, from 2018, was a playful, shallow mystery most notable for casting the lovely, languid Blake Lively as a cynical, devious clothes horse named Emily Nelson.
A high-powered Manhattan publicist swanning around suburban Connecticut in expensive pantsuits, Emily was hiding a dark, borderline Gothic past — and to keep it hidden she wound up committing murder, faking her own death and totally flummoxing the police, her husband (Henry Golding) and her new sort-of bestie, a mommy blogger named Stephanie (Anna Kendrick).
Lively, who always projected a kind of calm, back-burner dignity as Gossip Girl’s Serena, must have been thrilled to be playing this noiri-sh femme fatale, and audiences enjoyed seeing her having fun — especially alongside Kendrick, with her quick, needling humor and shrewd eyes.
You wouldn’t say that Lively’s performance had the indelible, dangerous sexiness of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction or, venturing much further into the past, Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven. She had a slinkiness that wasn’t the same as sensualness. But the film was a step forward for her, and a more rewarding viewing experience than the slightly quashed sensitivity of her performance in the legal fracas formerly known as It Ends With Us.
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Now, watching this sequel, you may wish it had all just ended with A Simple Favor. It’s a good-enough film, a divertingly mindless jumble of murder, Italian tourism and fashion, most of it trotted out as a flamboyant design showcase for Lively.
At one point she descends a staircase with her head completely hidden beneath a sunhat with a brim that’s wider than the rings of Saturn. If an outdoor café ever ran out of umbrellas, it could hire her. In another scene she arrives poolside in what appears to be a dressing gown of red brocaded velvet while brandishing a walking stick.
The walking stick is bad enough. Brandishing it is close to unconscionable.
Lorenzo Sisti/Amazon
Sunhat coming through! Sunhat coming through!
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The film’s slim thread to recognizable reality is Kendrick’s Stephanie, who always looks like someone who would nervously pill a dinner roll while pretending to be totally absorbed in the table conversation. Now famous for having sent Emily to prison, she’s become an amateur sleuth with a bestselling book and a reputation for solving cold cases. But her agent (Alex Newell) is getting antsy and wants Stephanie to find a new project before her career goes cold too.
Then guess who shows up, making an entrance grander than anything out of Aida? Sprung from prison and on the verge of flying off to Capri to marry someone named Dante (Michele Morrone), Emily wants Stephanie to serve as maid of honor. This is a bit like being asked to throw a bridal shower for Lizzie Borden, but Stephanie reluctantly agrees. Her success, after all, is tethered to Emily’s lethal glamour. And off they go to sunny Capri.
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Lorenzo Sisti/Amazon Studios
Michele Morrone, Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in “Another Simple Favor”
But soon there are complications, sinister and ultimately rather perverse, that implicate Stephanie and leave her placed under house arrest in the loveliest hotel room I’ve ever seen in a movie. The walls and floors are covered in blue-on-white tile that reflects the ocean’s refracted light. It’s the prison of my dreams.
Dante is revealed to be the rising son of a mob family (ruled by his mother, played with hissing authority by Elena Sofia Ricci). And Emily’s side of the family isn’t much better, represented by her mean, bilious aunt (Allison Janney, herself no slouch in the hissing-authority department) and her boozy mother (Elizabeth Perkins, replacing Jean Smart from the first film). Corpses begin to accumulate.
Lorenzo Sisti
Allison Janney, Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in “Another Simple Favor”
It all builds to a revelation — a kinky, climactic twist — that would be enjoyably preposterous if it didn’t end up undercutting Lively’s performance. She just doesn’t seem to have the deviant humor to pull it off. Kendrick, on the other hand, might — and Janney most certainly does. But Lively is the designated figure of smoke, mirrors and mystery here, whether or not this Favor does her any favors. That walking stick!
Another Simple Favor is on Prime Video May 1.
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