Heart-throb leading man from Crazy Rich Asians, Henry Golding turns up as a nonplussed husband in the glam noir, A SIMPLE FAVOUR.
Golding plays spouse to yummy mummy Emily, lively played by Blake Lively, a shady lady who befriends Stephanie, a cute cookie cutter single mother whose son attends the same school as Emily’s boy.
It’s an unlikely alliance of chalk and cheese with plenty of talk and tease as the women share secrets and lies during a series of Martini meets. Emily is the obvious femme fatale but sunny Stephanie has some pretty dark clouds around her silver linings.
When Emily vanishes, presumed dead, Stephanie decides to do some detective work which leads her into a tangled web of intrigue and the tangled sheets of Emily’s bed, not to mention the shoes of Emily’s cupboard.
A SIMPLE FAVOUR is simply, a stylish post-modern suburban noir that sets Stephanie Smothers on a sleuth seeking mission to uncover the truth behind her best friend Emily Nelson’s sudden disappearance from their small town.
Anna Kendrick plays Stephanie, and what a performance, a range from butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth to forensic ferret.
The comic chemistry crossing between Kendrick and Lively is put in a beaker and under the Bunsen to boil to a thrilling brew by director Paul Feig, in arguably his best picture to date. There’s comedy in the caper and a real sophistication in the thriller elements.
His use of jaunty pop tunes to infuse the film sets an ambience of chic and chicanery that muscles into your music memory like an endorphins evoking ear worm.
Jessica Sharzer’s script, based on Darcy Bell’s novel, is crisp and whip smart, with cracking comedic dialogue laced with thriller pace.
As Stephanie says, “secrets are like margarine, easy to spread but bad for the heart”.
A SIMPLE FAVOUR is an easy spread of murder mystery that’s god for your funny bone.
Do yourself a simple favour…
