A Simple Favor — Review

Glossy crime thriller A SIMPLE FAVOR was a notable career departure for director Paul Feig, who traded his usual comedically-driven style for a calculating and mysterious waltz through middle-class, suburban Americana. Sharing DNA with the work of Alfred Hitchcock and David Fincher, the film is difficult to pigeonhole. It routinely blends and shifts genres on a whim, twisting and turning from moment to moment as it weaves a noir-tinted web of manipulation and psychological gamesmanship.

Spearheaded by the effervescent conviction of both Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in polar opposite roles, the latter of whom anchors the piece with a confident and sexy star turn, A SIMPLE FAVOR explores the illusion of perfection in a clinical setting. Backed by a soundtrack that wouldn’t be out of place in a ‘50s-style Parisian cafe, Feig’s sophisticated and stylish thriller delights in offbeat satirical melodrama. Admittedly it can’t quite shake an air of fanciful weightlessness, but the film constantly appears aware of its campy, surface-level veneer and far-fetched nature.