A Simple Favour (15.)
Directed by Paul Feig.
Starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Jean Smart and Rupert Friend. 117 mins.
Peachy keen single mum vlogger Stephanie (Hendricks) is thrilled when glamourous, big city gin-mummy Emily (Lively) becomes her new best friend. But just as she is getting used to boozy afterschool play dates swigging Martinis in her big luxurious glass house, Stephanie disappears.
This is being trailed as comedy director Feig (The Heat, Spy) move into the realms of the dark thriller but actually, it has just as many laughs, big laughs at that, as his funny films. (Possibly a few more than his lady Ghostbusters.) The humour is an acknowledge of the awkwardness of trying to make a slick sophisticated Hitchcockian entertainment, in an era that isn't slick or sophisticated. In the old days, Lively's femme fatale would have been busy twisting some randy sap round her little fingers, but now has to lead whiney-voiced prig Hendricks up a selection of garden paths. It's fun and entertaining but packs in so many reversals and shocks you lose a little faith in it. It would have been better if, like one of Stephanie's Martinis, it was served with just one big twist.
Directed by Paul Feig.
Starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Jean Smart and Rupert Friend. 117 mins.
Peachy keen single mum vlogger Stephanie (Hendricks) is thrilled when glamourous, big city gin-mummy Emily (Lively) becomes her new best friend. But just as she is getting used to boozy afterschool play dates swigging Martinis in her big luxurious glass house, Stephanie disappears.
This is being trailed as comedy director Feig (The Heat, Spy) move into the realms of the dark thriller but actually, it has just as many laughs, big laughs at that, as his funny films. (Possibly a few more than his lady Ghostbusters.) The humour is an acknowledge of the awkwardness of trying to make a slick sophisticated Hitchcockian entertainment, in an era that isn't slick or sophisticated. In the old days, Lively's femme fatale would have been busy twisting some randy sap round her little fingers, but now has to lead whiney-voiced prig Hendricks up a selection of garden paths. It's fun and entertaining but packs in so many reversals and shocks you lose a little faith in it. It would have been better if, like one of Stephanie's Martinis, it was served with just one big twist.
