Movie Review ~ Another Simple Favor

Seven years after A Simple Favor slipped a murder mystery into a martini glass and served it with a twist of camp, director Paul Feig returns with Another Simple Favor—this time trading suburban Connecticut for the sun-drenched cliffs of Capri. What should feel like a delicious second round instead delivers a watered-down concoction. What could’ve been a seductive sequel ends up a bloated vacation that lacks the fizz and bite of the original. It’s like looking through a photo album of my trip to Capri as a high school senior: a few great outfits and many questionable decisions.

After sending her best friend Emily (Blake Lively, The Shallows) to jail for foiling an insurance scam that turned deadly—which also involved Emily’s identical twin—mommy vlogger Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour) has now turned to true crime to keep her busy. The author of a new book about her experience with Emily that hasn’t sold like she planned is shocked to see her felonious frenemy turn up at a book reading armed only with an invite to be the maid of honor at her lavish wedding in Italy.

Sprung out of jail by her handsome fiancé, Emily, ever the enigmatic force of chaos in designer couture, is marrying Dante Versano (Michele Morrone, Subservience), a mysterious Italian businessman with an estate that screams generational wealth and possible bodies in the basement. As the guests gather—including Stephanie’s book agent Vicky (Alex Newell), Emily’s ex Sean (Henry Golding, Crazy Rich Asians), and the surprise one-two punch of Emily’s zonked-out mother (Elizabeth Perkins, The Doctor) and her aunt (Allison Janney, Lou)—not to mention Dante’s unhappy Italian mafia mama Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci). Naturally, where Emily goes, murder and mayhem follow, ensnaring Stephanie in yet another web of betrayal.

Sounds fun, right? A wedding on the Mediterranean, secrets buried under the hot sun and steamy stone, and our catty heroines thrust back into each other’s glossy orbit. But while A Simple Favor worked brilliantly as a sleek, self-contained, slyly subversive thriller-comedy, this sequel barrels forward like it’s being dared to one-up itself—plot-wise, tone-wise, and in sheer absurdity. Incest jokes, child endangerment, masturbation gags—they’re all lobbed at the screen with varying levels of discomfort.

Feig, who directed Bridesmaids, Spy, and The Heat, knows how to blend comedy with chaos—but this time, the recipe’s off. Maybe it’s the new co-writer (Laeta Kalogridis joins Jessica Sharzer, who adapted the original from Darcey Bell’s novel) or the pressure to replicate campy/cult lightning in a bottle. Whatever the cause, the script meanders. It piles on so many characters and twists that by the time a gun gets pointed at a child’s head, you’re not shocked—you’re just tired.

And yet, when Kendrick and Lively share the screen, something still clicks. Their chemistry remains the film’s strongest asset. Lively continues to play Emily like she’s the apex predator of high society, slinking through scenes in Renée Ehrlich Kalfus’s outfits so fabulous they deserve their own end credits. One hat—yes, the one—feels engineered to block out the sun and the critics. Kendrick, meanwhile, turns the dial on Stephanie’s neurotic, endearingly awkward energy up past ten, often veering into the piercing and grating. Where their dynamic once thrived on contrast, this time it’s all chaos, no control.

The supporting cast struggles with material that doesn’t serve them at all. Tony-winner Newell brings delightful energy as Vicky but vanishes halfway through the film, a criminal waste of talent. Golding returns as Sean with line deliveries so wooden you wonder if the problem lies with him or the script. Perkins steps in for Jean Smart as Emily’s mother, a recasting that creates an unnecessary distraction, mainly since Janney’s Aunt Linda covers similar narrative territory. Janney—normally a one-woman cyclone of comedic frivolity—feels phoned-in, like her scenes were filmed in a green screen Culver City purgatory. (They probably were.)

The profanity is relentless and before it’s half over, watching the movie feels like being stuck on a group trip with people you only thought you liked—flashy, chaotic, fun for a moment, and then deeply exhausting. The F-bombs drop so frequently that they lose impact despite being delivered by actresses who normally make profanity sing. The first film had a sense of naughty fun as if you were in on a secret. This time, it feels like the joke’s on us.

Another Simple Favor proves that some mysteries should remain solved and demonstrates why stories should end with their first telling. Like a second cocktail that looked tempting when poured, it leaves you a little regretful, offering fleeting pleasure but ultimately disappointing.

But damn, that hat.