Another Simple Favor

In Another Simple Favor, director Paul Feig doesn't just revisit the dark, martini-fueled world of suburban lies and chic femme fatales: he takes a swig of limoncello, boards a private jet, and plunges it all into the glittering chaos of Capri. The result is a sequel that is both a delirious homage to pulp thrillers and a playful parody of their clichés, a feverish and brilliant dream dripping with satire while indulging in all manner of extravagant, absurd, and irreverent excess. Seven years after A Simple Favor quietly slipped into theaters and gathered a cult following thanks to its powerful mix of black mom vlogger, high-fashion murder, and sworn enemies flirting with psychopathy, Paul Feig and screenwriters Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis return with a sequel that doesn't so much evolve the tone of the original as inflate it like a designer life raft, which takes on water with style at every turn. And yet, despite all the madness, what anchors the film is the magnetic and disturbed chemistry between Stephanie Smothers, played by Anna Kendrick, and Emily Nelson, played by Blake Lively, two women caught in an eternal dance of death made up of admiration, deception, and barely suppressed sexual tension.

The sequel opens on a familiar chaotic note, with Stephanie addressing her followers on her vlog from her house arrest in a stunning Italian villa, alluding to murder, betrayal, and a vacation gone wrong. This narrative device, one of the film's most clever touches, repositions Stephanie not only as an unreliable narrator, but also as a woman who now flaunts her trauma as a trademark. The former mommy blogger has become a bona fide crime star, having written a best-selling (but now fading) book called The Faceless Blonde, which recounts her infamous story with Emily. Anna Kendrick plays these early scenes with a mix of false humility and latent narcissism that is truly fascinating; Stephanie is no longer the wide-eyed innocent of the original film, but she's not yet jaded enough to stop chasing the next opportunity. This contradiction between vulnerability and ambition is what makes her character so captivating, especially as she is once again drawn into Emily's orbit. And what an entrance for Emily! Bursting into a dreary book signing, dressed in a striped suit inspired by a prisoner's uniform and chained up, Blake Lively instantly reminds us why her character Emily is one of the most captivating in modern pulp fiction: a woman who uses fashion, sex, and sociopathy as weapons in equal measure, while taking care never to spill her Negroni.

The plot—a ridiculous mix of blackmail, mafia vendettas, long-lost family members, and murders staged as art performances—matters less than how it unfolds. Emily, freed from prison thanks to her new fiancé's legal team, invites (or rather coerces) Stephanie to be her maid of honor at a wedding in Capri. The fiancé, Dante Versano (played with dark charisma by Michele Morrone), is the descendant of a powerful Italian mafia family, and the film uses this setup not so much to create tension as to revel in it. Every location—from lemon trees to cliffside villas—is filmed like a perfume commercial, and every supporting character enters the frame as if auditioning for their own giallo-inspired spin-off series. Paul Feig, alongside cinematographer John Schwartzman, fully embraces this jet-set aesthetic: drone-shot panoramas, symmetrical compositions, and color palettes that echo classic Italian cinema are ubiquitous, and the sheer beauty of the images often serves as a smokescreen for the narrative absurdities. This isn't a criticism, it's actually a quality, not a flaw. Another Simple Favor knows that it's a luxury product, not a logical one.

It is in the relationship between the two main characters that the film takes on its full depth, or at least sharpens its claws. Stephanie and Emily remain fascinating not because they are opposites, but because they are mirrors of each other. Both are brilliant manipulators. Both are intimately familiar with the art of self-presentation, whether in the form of a carefully constructed online persona or a cold and deadly fashion icon. And both are women who are constantly underestimated by the men around them. Paul Feig's direction allows this dynamic to flourish in a long game of psychological one-upmanship, where every wedding toast is a veiled threat, every sidelong glance a potential death wish. Kendrick, in particular, delivers a masterful comic performance that transforms Stephanie's anxiety into a force for action. Her comic timing is sharp, as is her sense of when to drop the mask. And Blake Lively, although she plays more exaggeratedly here than in the first installment, still manages to infuse Emily with enough pathos to make her more than just a blood-covered Vogue model. Her scenes with supporting actors such as Elizabeth Perkins (who plays Emily's crazy mother) and Allison Janney (who plays a sarcastic and possibly murderous aunt) provide just the right amount of family dysfunction to ground the madness in emotional residue.

If the film falters, it does so in the same way that many sequels do: by believing that more is always better. The murder mystery at the heart of the plot, while functional, is bogged down by too many red herrings, too many new characters, and too little time to truly care about any of them. At a certain point, the narrative stops creating suspense and starts going around in circles—a sequence with a truth serum, in particular, drags on long after the punchline has been delivered. And while the introduction of mob politics and family vendettas adds a new dimension to the story, it also muddies the waters. Emily is more fascinating when she's mysterious, elusive, a myth incarnate. Too many explanations, in the form of flashbacks, family trees, and belated revelations, dull her luster somewhat. The tone is also uneven, as some genuinely dark moments (notably a problematic joke about sexual assault played for laughs) are undermined by the film's zany side. It wants to be Knives Out, White Lotus, and To Die For all at once, and while this alchemy sometimes produces cinematic gems, it also risks exhausting the narrative.

Despite all its excesses, Another Simple Favor never stops being entertaining. In fact, it's often hilarious. The dialogue is sharp and biting, with the acidity of freshly squeezed Amalfi lemons. There are enough visual gags, including an unforgettable moment involving a burning villa and a charred veil, to warrant multiple viewings. The costumes, designed by Renée Ehrlich Kalfus, are simply Oscar-worthy, with each outfit contributing both to character development and visual impact. (Emily's blood-stained wedding dress, in particular, deserves a separate chapter in a book on movie fashion.) And while the supporting cast sometimes seems secondary, they shine at times: Sean, the perpetually drunk character played by Henry Golding, is a walking meme, Elena Sofia Ricci embodies pure telenovela rage as the mafia matriarch, and Andrew Rannells appears just long enough to deliver one of the film's best lines before disappearing into the Capri sunset.

Another Simple Favor may not have the same structural elegance or surprise effect as its predecessor, but it makes up for it with flamboyant confidence and pure delight in its own theatricality. It's a film that understands the appeal of beautiful people doing terrible things in beautiful places, and it lets you sip that poison as if it were the house specialty. It's ridiculous, yes. Overrated, absolutely. But it's also addictive, deliciously paced, and carried by two of the most memorable female characters in contemporary cinema. If A Simple Favor was a twisted cocktail of noir and suburban satire, Another Simple Favor is its upscale cousin, sweet and splattered with blood, drunker, louder, and, in some ways, even funnier. Don't ask if it makes sense. Just ask for another round. Let's Rock

Another Simple Favor
Directed by Paul Feig
Written by Jessica Sharzer, Laeta Kalogridis
Based on Characters by Darcey Bell
Produced by Paul Feig, Laura Fischer
Starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Elizabeth Perkins, Michele Morrone, Elena Sofia Ricci, Alex Newell, Henry Golding, Allison Janney
Cinematography: John Schwartzman
Edited by Brent White
Music by Theodore Shapiro
Production companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, Feigco Entertainment, Bron Studios, Creative Wealth Media Finance, Big Indie Pictures
Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios
Release dates: March 7, 2025 (SXSW), May 1, 2025 (United States, France)
Running time: 120 minutes

Seen on April 29, 2025 (press screener)

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