"A Simple Favor"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

The aptly named Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is an annoyingly on-top-of-it mom. Most parents feel accomplished if just everyone still has a pulse at the end of the day. But not Stephanie. This single mom (that’s right, she does it by herself) is an ever-vigilant watcher of her son, Miles (Joshua Satine), she volunteers at Miles’ school far more than is required or needed or even wanted, she cooks gourmet dinners, and she puts Mr. Clean to shame, all while maintaining a cheerful demeanor and snappy appearance.

Oh, also, by the way, she has a popular mom’s video blog as well. Yeah, she’s on top of it.

Yet Stephanie doesn’t have any mom friends (I wonder why). She wants them. Desperately. But she just can’t find them.

That is, until Miles and his classmate, Nicky (Ian Ho), absolutely insist on having a play date. Stephanie is game. But then walks in Nicky’s mom, Emily (Blake Lively). Emily is smart and sharply dressed, but also busy, short-tempered, crass, and just wants to make it clear that she’s not having any of it, no matter what “it” is. She eventually agrees to the play date, but only because she’s lazy with her son and doesn’t want to put the effort into telling him no. Plus, it dawns on her that Stephanie is basically a free babysitter.

Stephanie and Emily end up getting to know each other a bit. And they are quite an odd pair. Whereas Stephanie is wholesome, sweet, a bit naïve, and, most of all, way into the whole mom thing, Emily doesn’t care, not ever a little bit, about the whole mom thing—path of least resistance for her—nor does she care about politeness, niceties, social convention, early-afternoon sobriety, or just about anything else other than her high-powered job in the fashion industry. Emily is doing Emily, and that’s about all there is to it.

Yet the relationship between Stephanie and Emily works for both of them. Stephanie has a mom friend—a hip one at that—and Emily has, well, someone to pick her kid up from school when she’s running late (which is a lot). It’s a strange relationship, to be sure. But it’s oddly symbiotic.

Then one day Emily goes missing. Earlier in the day she called Stephanie to ask her to pick up Nicky, which, as ever, Stephanie was happy to do. But then it was dinner time, and then bath time, and then bed time—and still no Emily. It’s only after several days that Stephanie is even able to get in touch with Nicky’s dad/Emily’s husband, Sean (Henry Golding). But he doesn’t know where Emily is either. No one does.

So Stephanie does what any good friend would do: She takes to her blog. She gives updates, encourages people to keep a look out for signs of Emily, shares her latest theories on what’s happened, and so on. Out of love for her friend, or maybe just boredom—what else is she gonna do now that her bestie is gone?—Stephanie takes on the role of detective, piecing together any clues that may lead to Emily.

As Stephanie digs deeper and deeper, it starts to look like Emily is not who she seemed. But, then, Stephanie ends up not being who she seemed either. I guess nothing is as it seemed.

Indeed, “A Simple Favor” is one big plot knot—twist after twist after tangled twist. These plot twists don’t exactly defy expectations, at least not by the end, because there are so many of them that you sort of just stop expecting things.

Which isn’t necessarily a criticism. Plot twists are nothing new, and there’s a way in which they can pretty easily start to make a movie feel gimmicky, even formulaic. But the unique set-up of this movie—a couple of martini-loving moms meeting for playdates—together with charming performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, keep this movie feeling fresh and fun.

Sure, there are some moments to groan about—like when a dorky dad foils an attempted murder at the very last instant, as if that ever happens, in a way that definitely never happens, and then goes all preachy on the potential perpetrator about how parents stick together … blah, blah, blah. All right, there’s some of that. But, still, you could be doing worse than to sit back, grab a martini, and unwind with this people-pleaser while the kids do, well, whatever it is they want to do, as long as it’s in the other room.