A Simple Favor

Never settles with a tone and is far too fluctuating to get away with that. Also there's a written epilogue for fictional characters. So after they've decided to stop filming scenes, they think they should further map out the story of these fictional characters for you. Egregious. Say what you will about the necessity of the final scene from Shawshank Redemption but at least they filmed it!

The tone changes wildly throughout the movie, going from a very striking mysterious feel, to cheesy & goofy. The movie was very enjoyable and the plot held up.

Annoying from the outset. Emily's character looks to pull this film out of the doldrums in the third act with hopefully some revelations about her being involved in some secret underworld, given the character she is portraying from the start, but it just descends into hand wringing slop. Everything then turns to farce and the whole thing falls flat.

A timely satire of the Gillian Flynn variety of mystery films that have been populating the cinemas. It is intricate enough to not be a full blown farce, but it isn't far off either thanks to some absolutely wacky writing. Both of the lead ladies are complete hyperbolized psychopaths and everything about the mystery just bends around them. It is a rather jarring yet fun collision of worlds that shows Feig still has some juice.

A SIMPLE FAVOR is all of the following: a Lifetime thriller on steroids, a cheeky noir on a transcendent sugar high, a rare genre film that gives depth to the relationships and personalities of its female characters, and a smart deconstruction of Hitchcock-lite literary fare written solely for the studio option. It's goofy GONE GIRL, essentially, and it is a blast.