A Simple Favour Review – Spoiler Free
A Simple Favour is a film which is both a comedy and a crime thriller that comes directed by Paul Feig who some may know for his work on Spy (2015) or Bridesmaids (2011). The films stars Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Ian Ho, Joshua Satine and Henry Golding. A simple Favour is a film about a mother and blogger who becomes friends with a very mysterious woman that disappears one day.
After seeing the first trailer for this film a few months ago, I was immediately intrigued as to what possibilities A Simple Favour would offer. Having enjoyed recent performances from Anna Kendrick at the cinema recently such as her appearances in The Accountant and Table 19, I was excited to see the actress again on the big screen. Blake Lively has also been really great lately as well with her performances in The Shallows and Cafe Society. Having both of these two stars in the same film together seemed interesting and what the trailers were showing was very mysterious. Having seen also that Paul Feig was directing this one meant my expectations for it were rather high, but I have to say that they were definitely satisfied once I left the screening.
It’s hard to talk about the plot of A Simple Favour without spoiling it, so I won’t go into it at all in this review. It’s a mystery film and I’d rather that if you do read this review and decide to go and see the film that you go in as fresh as possible this weekend. What I was most pleasantly surprised with the plot of A Simple Favour was that the film was incredibly funny. Which was something that I was not expecting at all. But even though much of the film did deliver quite a few laughs all throughout, Paul Feig somehow managed to maintain a mysterious feeling during the run time and occasionally quite a dark tone in an otherwise delightful film. I give great credit to Paul Feig in this film as somehow he’s pulled off one of the best films of the year and also one that’s definitely in my top 5 films of 2018 right now. The only problem I would say the plot does have is that towards the end things seemed to be getting a little far fetched for me and that might bother people in general throughout the experience.
The actors were pretty great. Anna Kendrick had the most screen time in this film and I have to say that this is now one of my favourite films of hers. Anna Kendrick seems to have excellent comedic ability and things always were quite funny when she was on screen. Blake Lively also did well and had a character with quite a bit of range to play. The two worked well together and I’d happily watch either of these actresses again at the cinema. Also if you’ve recently watch Crazy Rich Asians at the cinema, you’ll notice Henry Golding in this film and he was actually quite good and fit into the role well. These three actors really did some special work in this film.
The look of the film and the sets are quite nice. Where things do stand out is in the costume/outfit choices. Blake Lively’s character, Emily, works in the fashion business and has all these very interesting outfits that she wears throughout the film. Other characters were also well dressed and in general everyone was very colourful. The film also makes use of quite a bit of french music throughout, which lent towards more of a slightly relaxed tone that did well to bring out the comedy, but also worked well for the darker moments.
Overall A Simple Favour is one of the better films of 2018 and Paul Feig did well to balance the comedy aspects with the more darker mysterious aspects throughout the film. Both Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively really stood out in this film with their performances and did some of the best work in both their careers. A Simple Favour is surprisingly funny and very entertaining, more than I was expecting for what looked like a mysterious thriller based on what I saw in the trailers. Even though I went in with high expectations, I found them all met and am very happy to recommend A Simple Favour as a film to see at the cinema this weekend.
