The best of 2018: A Simple Favor
A review by Brooks Rich
I love films that show the dark side of suburbia. If one looks behind the manicured lawns, the mom vans, the perfect families, they'll find some of the worst depths of human depravity. A Simple Favor plays with that idea. What's behind the gorgeous perfect family that lives down the street? This is essentially a Neo-noir set in suburbia.
Anna Kendrick stars as Stephanie, a "mommy blogger" who strikes up a strange friendship with the mysterious Emily, a fellow mom, played by the always fantastic Blake Lively. When Emily goes missing after asking Stephanie to pick up her son, Stephanie begins to question who her friend really is.
The main thing I can praise here without spoiling anything is the two main performances. Lively steals the show here but Kendrick keeps up with her and is perfectly cast as Stephanie. I adore Anna Kendrick and I hope this kickstarts a new phase to her career. Stephanie is at times a very Anna Kendrick role, cute, bubbly, clever, so adorable, but she shows some real dramatic chops here. But it is Blake Lively who is the heavyweight. After her brilliant performance in the deeply underrated The Shallows last year, Lively is quickly becoming one of our top actresses. Her performance in A Simple Favor has to be seen. There's no words to describe it. She's just awesome.
This is now my favorite Paul Feig movie. Now that's not hard to do because I didn't like Paul Feig's movies before A Simple Favor. The Heat was okay but everything else I did not care for. This is his best work. He does a great job telling this story. The comedy is used well but never takes away from the story. Sometimes drama and comedy have a hard time coexisting but not here. It's one of the main reasons to see this. A funny suburban comedy keeps getting interrupted by a thriller. I am not expecting more like this from him anytime soon but I can now say Paul Feig has made a movie I adore. This is one from 2018 not to skip.
4.5/5
A review by Brooks Rich
I love films that show the dark side of suburbia. If one looks behind the manicured lawns, the mom vans, the perfect families, they'll find some of the worst depths of human depravity. A Simple Favor plays with that idea. What's behind the gorgeous perfect family that lives down the street? This is essentially a Neo-noir set in suburbia.
Anna Kendrick stars as Stephanie, a "mommy blogger" who strikes up a strange friendship with the mysterious Emily, a fellow mom, played by the always fantastic Blake Lively. When Emily goes missing after asking Stephanie to pick up her son, Stephanie begins to question who her friend really is.
The main thing I can praise here without spoiling anything is the two main performances. Lively steals the show here but Kendrick keeps up with her and is perfectly cast as Stephanie. I adore Anna Kendrick and I hope this kickstarts a new phase to her career. Stephanie is at times a very Anna Kendrick role, cute, bubbly, clever, so adorable, but she shows some real dramatic chops here. But it is Blake Lively who is the heavyweight. After her brilliant performance in the deeply underrated The Shallows last year, Lively is quickly becoming one of our top actresses. Her performance in A Simple Favor has to be seen. There's no words to describe it. She's just awesome.
This is now my favorite Paul Feig movie. Now that's not hard to do because I didn't like Paul Feig's movies before A Simple Favor. The Heat was okay but everything else I did not care for. This is his best work. He does a great job telling this story. The comedy is used well but never takes away from the story. Sometimes drama and comedy have a hard time coexisting but not here. It's one of the main reasons to see this. A funny suburban comedy keeps getting interrupted by a thriller. I am not expecting more like this from him anytime soon but I can now say Paul Feig has made a movie I adore. This is one from 2018 not to skip.
4.5/5
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