The first rule for actors in a comedy? Don’t act like you’re in a comedy.
That simple advice is lost on the cast in ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR. They run around, bellowing every utterance, over-emphasizing the punch lines, and mugging like they’re in a high school play. Even terrific actors like Anna Kendrick. Henry Golding and Allison Janney give embarrassingly oversized performances, and director Paul Feig should know better than that in this sequel to his clever and elegant mystery from 2018.
In the original A SIMPLE FAVOR, Feig walked a fine line between telling a crackerjack mystery and making fun of some of the conventions of the genre. Here, it all feels like an SNL skit. A bad one. Feig doesn’t exhibit any of the control he showed in the first outing, though the art direction and costume design are once again stellar. Instead, it feels like Feig accepted that the script was ludicrous and just pushed everything else to be just as silly, from the overwrought acting to the jarring editing to the noisy soundtrack.
The original film told the story of Connecticut widow/mommy vlogger Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) and her efforts to uncover why and how her new bestie, the elegant and affluent Emily (Blake Lively) Nelson, disappeared. When Emily’s body shows up dead in a Michigan lake, Stephanie turns into an amateur sleuth to solve the mystery. She ended up discovering that the body was actually Emily’s twin whom her bestie killed to trade places with and escape a loveless marriage. A lot of the film was amusing, but most of it felt tense and disturbing too. But here Jessica Sharzer seems to have forgotten how dry and sly her adaptation was of Darcey Bell’s bestseller back then. Instead, Sharzer, working with Laeta Kalogridis this go-round, amps all the elements up to an 11 to turn this sequel into something that plays as utterly ridiculous.
The very premise is unfathomable as it sees Emily get out of jail in just five years, rescued by a well-connected mafioso named Dante (Michele Morrone). Then, the thankful Emiy heads immediately to Capri to marry him. Even more inexplicably, Stephanie agrees to be Emily’s maid of honor and, once she arrives in Italy, discovers that there is tangible evil lurking around every corner. The tony hotel is the most dangerous this side of The White Lotus, veritably crawling with loads of mobsters, other suspicious characters, family feuding, and eventually, multiple murders. This should be all be thrilling; instead, it’s trying. Feig, et al play it loud and proud, just shy of a Blake Edwards farce. That tone feels miles from the first effort. Additional no-no’s are made by putting exposition in too many characters’ mouths, wasting returning cast members Alex Newell and Andrew Rannells, and turning the likable Stephanie into a nattering chatterbox in every scene. Only Lively keeps some of her dignity intact by playing her enigmatic character close to her designer vest. No one else exits this mess unscathed.
ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR premieres on Prime this weekend, but my advice is to escape unscathed yourself by skipping it altogether.
