Though it can't replicate the original's blend of camp and tension, Another Simple Favor is enough cheesy fun for a once over.
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There's a lot of reasons sequels get made. The most obvious reason is a giant box office cash-in on the original film's success. Because as much as people are sick to death of sequels and reboots, they're often giant box office successes. As an example, as beloved as Die Hard is, it mostly took the world by storm via the home video market and the next three films all performed substantially better than the original at the box office. Then there's sequels that get made because there's a natural progression or new place for the story to go. If your movie ends with a cliffhanger or a smirk, curiosity might be enough to get folks onboard for a second round. And then there's sequels that seem to exist because the folks involved like making the first one and they got someone to pay for it. Case in point, Another Simple Favor, a sequel to the darkly funny soapy mystery A Simple Favor that puts its two gorgeous leads, Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, in Capri, Italy.
The Setup
Set five years after the first film, our former mommy blogger turned true crime investigator Stephanie Smouthers has hit a rough patch. Her new book isn't selling like it should, she's lost her enthusiasm for investigation and her son thinks she's an embarassment. So when her former friend Emily is miraculously released from jail and asks Stephanie to join her as her maid of honor in Capri, Stephanie goes against her best instincts and joins Emily for another wild ride of murder and secrets.
A Simple Favor is a movie I really liked for a hyper specific reason. It felt like a tongue-in-cheek soap opera. Most twisty thrillers go in one of two directions. Either they're played entirely straight and meant to be as distressing and unsettling as possible or they lean in a more comedic direction. This is usually a decision made by the screenwriter or director depending on the desired tone and the material. Whodunnit mysteries are actually a ripe place for comedy because they often feature so many colorful characters bouncing off on another or could have a larger point being made about wealth/society.
What's much less common is to lean into the exaggerated elements of your story and play them to the rafters, while nodding to the audience that you know this is absurd at the same time. This is something a lot of soap operas do, since the melodrama is why people watch in the first place, so the gratuitous sex scenes, absurd twists and even the absurd ends for many of the characters feel in line with the visual and acting tones.
Everything about this says it's the most dramatic thing in the world, but for some reason we get the feeling that it's all a joke. It's a fine line, but one A Simple Favor pulled off really well.
And if there's one thing that Another Simple Favor does it's abandoning this tension for full blown comedy...and I'm not sure it works.
A bit part of why the first film works so well is because Blake Lively's Emily feels impossible to pin down. She seems dangerous, but is also oddly empathetic. She'sl someone who will make you feel good about baring your soul to her, before dropping a hint of what she now knows about you in polite company with a wink. It's easy to see why people get pulled into her orbit while we're also very afraid of her.
It was also about Anna Kendrick's Stephanie Smouthers going from reactive to proactive in her life and career to take on Emily.
So Emily showing back up with Stephanie being suspicious feels like a setup doesn't it? Not a setup for Stephanie, but a setup for the audience to imagine that Emily is masterminding some elaborate version of revenge. Stephanie says this on screen over and over again. Which is also a great sign that that's not what's going on because any time a movie leans that hard on an idea, it's not going to be true.
This is a domino that once tipped over means that the rest of the movie is going to have to go to progressively more absurd places to shock and engage the audience, some that hit, some that miss. The central plot twist in particular is...polarizing to say the least. This lack of seriousness is also amplified by the shot selection and location that all scream: "this is another sequel to Mamma Mia and should be treated as such."
That's not to say there's no appeal in watching some talented performers who can do both lean into some hardcore cheese. Anna Kendrick is very good throughout the movie, both capturing the "here we go again" discomfort Smouthers is wading through with some great comedic breakdowns. Blake Lively still has a firm grasp on Emily's mercurial vibe. And new additions like Allison Janney are more than welcome. And as intentionally ridiculous as so much of this movie is, so many of the jokes land that I still enjoyed myself.
My thought is that the script should've been retooled to lean into the buddy/frenemy vibes of the original film both because Kendrick and Lively have good screen chemistry, but it would also be very easy to change the hook from "be my maid of honor" to "I've out of jail and accused of another murder...but I didn't do it."
The Verdict: Light Fun
Though it can't replicate the original's blend of camp and tension, Another Simple Favor is enough cheesy fun for a once over. 6/10
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