Another Simple Favor: More Wisecracks and Floppy Hats as Twisty Sequel Moves to Capri

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B+

Sequels are such fraught things. Since they’re inevitably based on something that was popular enough to warrant an encore, they arrive larded with expectations. And if the original film was a ridiculously entertaining left-field charmer, the stakes are even higher. Are we about to be dazzled by something like John Wick: Chapter 2… or are we bracing for Bad Santa 2?

It’s a relief to report that Another Simple Favor, director Paul Feig’s follow-up to his A Simple Favor from 2018, falls in the former category. The original film was an unexpected blast: a twisty, shifty mystery-comedy propelled by sharp dialogue, a touch of glamour, and a fabulously outfitted, martini-swilling mom with a secret (or three) played with ice-queen cool by Blake Lively.

In the film, Lively’s Emily intersects with Anna Kendrick’s Stephanie, a perky, seemingly goody two-shoes neighbour, also a mom and a vlogger with a coy aw-shucks demeanor. Stephanie, too, has secrets, and as the women bond over cocktails after collecting their sons from school, their lives overlap in ways both positive and destructive yet curiously magnetic.

Along the way, Feig and his screenwriters delivered myriad red herrings to keep everyone guessing until the final frame. The abrupt narrative shifts in A Simple Favor — many sinister yet salted with black comedy and all manner of zingers — were as much the gas in the tank as the sterling, sassy performances from Lively and Kendrick, who were both all-in.

Another Simple Favour picks up a few years later, moving from suburbia to swoon-worthy Capri and bringing back much of its original cast, with small exceptions (Elizabeth Perkins subs in for Jean Smart as Emily’s mother, Allison Janney is added as her scheming sister).

As the trailer reveals, Emily returns unexpectedly from prison and ambushes her former friend Stephanie, beseeching her to be maid-of-honour at her wedding to a rich hunk on the swish Italian island, a destination they will reach by private jet, speedboat, and vintage car. Yup, Emily is moving up in the world, and fast.

Stephanie, fearing Emily must have revenge up her couture-curated sleeve, initially demurs, but a combination of threats and curiosity propel her to accept the invitation. Her burgeoning career as a mystery author might just get a boost along the way — especially if Emily does try to kill her.

That subplot allows the film to add Alex Newell as Stephanie’s tag-along literary agent, a role the writers curiously but palpably underwrite. She’s forgotten almost as soon as she boards the jet. The other characters, including Henry Golding as Emily’s embittered, boozy ex-husband, have no such problem.

Saying much more about what unfolds next seems unwise; if you haven’t seen the original, Another Simple Favor is still comprehensible — key plot points are laid out in the dialogue — but the rewards are likely lesser without the full emotional weight of the backstory.

Those lucky enough to have experienced the original in those hazy, bygone pre-pandemic days will almost certainly have any hopes met. At the very least, the visuals are sumptuous.

Emily’s outfits are even more fabulous, the setting is divine, and the many scenes of verbal jousting between Emily and Stephanie are profane, witty, and tremendously enjoyable. Of course, there are also twists aplenty. Alas, here the film feels as if it’s straining to top its original, a tall order leading to a stark lack of credulity for anyone who bothers to do the proverbial math, especially in the film’s denouement.

But why bother with math when the ride to the end is so fun? Viewers are better served by submitting to the immersive thrill of it all, in the context of a film that doesn’t ask us to ask too much of ourselves.

Let’s hope the final scene, which dangles the possibility of a threequel, doesn’t take shape. As Stephanie might say of those endless martinis, it’s always wise to know when to stop.

Another Simple Favor. Directed by Paul Feig. Written by Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis. Starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Elizabeth Perkins, Michele Morrone, Alex Newell, Elena Sofia Ricci, Henry Golding, and Allison Janney. Available on Prime Video May 1.