Another Simple Favor (Feig, 2025)

On paper — at the pitch level — Another Simple Favor sounds like a no-brainer. Seven years out from a film that reportedly grossed 100M on a budget of 20, with familiar but not overpriced stars (Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively), and streaming giant (Amazon) happy to act like exclusive dibs on this title is a big deal, Another Simple Favor is a classic too-small-to-fail title that doesn’t have to be good just so long as it isn’t really, really, really bad.

Stephanie (Kendrick) is on a lackluster book tour when Emily (Lively) comes in, fresh out of jail because…sequel…and invites/demands the mommy blogger and author act as her maid of honor because…sequel. The wedding is taking place in Italy because…well, sequel.

Once everyone gets resituated in the Mediterranean the film plays out like a fusion version of Murder, She Wrote meets Knives Out but without the charm of either. If there is a point to all the contrived zaniness, I guess it is that Stephanie is a lot smarter than she looks, though I never once believed she was in any danger. Absent any stakes to the mystery, I was more impatient for the big twist than blown over by it.

There is a riff on the (infamous?) “brother-fucker” line from the first film, which prompts Emily to look at Stephanie and say something like, “You’ve been waiting to say that, haven’t you?” The scene felt like a deconstruction of the movie — I thought maybe Feig had been waiting seven years to deliver that line and forgot to write the rest of the movie around it.