A SIMPLE FAVOUR : Tuesday 25th September 2018.

I saw 'A SIMPLE FAVOUR' earlier in the week, and this American mystery comedy thriller is Directed and Co-Produced by Paul Feig whose previous feature film Director credits include 2016's 'Ghostbusters', 2015's 'Spy', 2013's 'The Heat' and 2011's 'Bridesmaid's' as well as numerous episodes of television series including 'The Office', 'Arrested Development', 'Weeds' and 'Nurse Jackie'. Here, he adapts for the big screen the 2017 novel of the same name by Darcey Bell. The film was released in Australia and the USA two weeks ago, has received generally positive Reviews especially for its plots twists and turns and the performances of its two principle female cast, and has so far generated US$46M off the back of its US$20M production budget outlay.

We are first introduced to Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick), a widowed single mother, via her on screen vlog which she runs from the comfort of her own kitchen to an audience of Mum's preaching the gospel according to her helpful household crafts, cooking and essential arsenal of basic home skills that every Mum should possess. She digresses, and begins to recount the story of how her very best friend Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) disappeared four days ago seemingly without a trace, and just how worried she is for her friends safety and wellbeing. In flashback, we learn how Stephanie and Emily first became acquainted, through their sons Miles (Joshua Satine) and Nicky (Ian Ho) respectively who attend the same junior school together. Emily is a busy working Mum, working as the PR Director for fashion guru Dennis Nylon (Rupert Friend).

Through their children who coerce their Mum's into play dates, Stephanie and Emily quickly bond and become firm friends, with Emily frequently inviting Stephanie back to her lavish household for afternoon martini's while the kids amuse themselves at play. On one such occasion, after several rather large and potent martini's the girls trade their deepest secrets.

Emily goes first stating her frustration at the lack of success of her husband, Sean Townsend (Henry Golding), an English professors' writing career (it's been ten years since his first and last book), and their poor financial situation which has them up to the eyeballs in debt despite their apparent wealth. Despite Emily's frustration and derision of her husband, she seemingly loves him and is very openly affectionate towards him in front of a slightly embarrassed Stephanie. Then it's Stephanie's turn to come clean with her deepest darkest secret and she admits that as a teenager, after her father died, she had sex with her half-brother, Chris (Dustin Milligan), which Emily playfully teases her about calling her a 'BrotherFucker'.

One day, Emily calls Stephanie asking a simple favour of her. She asks if Stephanie could collect Nicky from school and look after him for a few hours as she has a work crisis to deal with which requires her urgent attention in the city. Stephanie as cordial and obliging as always is only happy to help out her good friend, particularly as her husband Sean is in London attending to his own sick mother. However, time marches on and not having heard from Emily for two days, despite voicemail and text messages left, she calls her employer who tell her that Stephanie is in Miami for a few days.

Stephanie also calls Sean, who tells her that Emily has a history of just disappearing unannounced for a few days, but they both agree to alert the Police. While talking with two Police Officers, Sean indicated that Emily had no family, while she previously told Stephanie she had a sister, and that they had matching tattoos on their wrists. Stephanie mentions to Sean that she learned Emily hated having her photo taken, and Sean confirms a similar incident, but neither know the reason for this.

And so Stephanie turns Super Sleuth and goes to the Dennis Nylon headquarters in the city and sneaks into Emily's office and finds a photo of her, captioned with 'Gotta Have Faith' in handwriting below. Stephanie uses the photograph to create a missing person poster which she distributes around the town. The Police Officer handling the case, Detective Summervile (Bashir Salahuddin) reports to Sean that Emily lied about taking a trip to Miami, and instead rented a white Kia in Michigan. A fan of Stephanie's vlog reports seeing someone fitting Emily's description and vehicle in Michigan, and the car is discovered near the Squaw Lake Bible Camp. Upon closer inspection, the Police discover her drowned body in the water.

Sean mourns the loss of his wife despite her foibles, quirks, idiosyncrasies and flights of fancy and Stephanie grieves the loss of a her best friend. Sharing their collective grief, and whilst taking care of their two young boys, the pair grow close and begin a relationship, resulting in Stephanie moving in with Sean to his former matrimonial home. Following an autopsy of Emily's body, Detective Summerville reveals that Emily had sever liver damage, was overdosed on heroin and that only weeks before her death Sean had taken out a US$4M life insurance policy on his wife.

Emily however, it seems is alive and has been spying on Sean and Stephanie from afar. Upset by how events have transpired she sends a 'BrotherFucker' note to Stephanie. This spurs Stephanie to continue with her investigations, so she seeks out Diana Hyland (Linda Cardellini) who a few years back painted a rather provocative portrait of a naked Emily. Diana states that the girl in the portrait, who posed with her hair dyed raspberry red was named Claudia and described her as a con artist and her muse all in the same sentence. She just disappeared after that never to be heard of again - until now. Diana gives Stephanie a clue to a Summer Camp which she attended as a teenager, and so the vlogger turned Super Sleuth drives there, where she trawls through various year books in search of further clues.

At the Summer Camp, Stephanie comes across a year book entry showing two twin sisters aged sixteen or so - unmistakably Emily with her sister, but that their real names are recorded as Faith and Hope McLanden.

Stephanie later reaches out to Emily through a series of cryptic messages on her vlog which she knows that Emily is monitoring. They meet at the cemetery where Emily is supposedly buried, and sip on martini's for old times sake. Emily explains that in their teens they ran away from home to escape their abusive and controlling father, then went their separate ways agreeing to meet up again when the dust had settled on their disappearance, but never did. In the intervening years Faith wasted away her life, got drunk, addicted to heroin, had a string of dead end relationships and is living on the edge with no money to her name. Hope however, carved out a successful career, married well and settled down to family life. Now some sixteen years on, and Faith reached out wanting to reconnect, and bribing Emily for US$1M otherwise she'll blow the lid on their disappearance and their reasons behind it, all those years ago. Hope had little alternative under the circumstances but to dispense with her sister, which she did in the lake by drowning her while the both swam, recounting memories from those bygone days.

Emily spins a yarn and tells Stephanie that it was Sean's idea to fake her own death, realise the insurance monies, skip the country and live happily ever after. Stephanie reluctantly agrees to help Emily reappear having won the support of Stephanie's vlog audience and frame Sean for physical abuse (which she manufactures evidence of) and insurance fraud. Sean is promptly taken into custody, charged and released on bail. Stephanie secretly changes her mind about Emily's antics and proposed plan, and invents an argument with Sean in front of Emily to incriminate her, while Police listen in on microphones planted in the room. Emily however, did not come down in the last rain shower, and after sidling up to Sean all lovey dovey predicts their ruse, and renders the microphones useless beforehand. Emily confesses to her crimes, holds the pair at gunpoint, tells them she will kill them both and make it look like a murder-suicide. She shoots Sean in the shoulder and turns the gun on Stephanie. Stephanie then reveals that she has a hidden camera concealed as a button in her blouse and is live-streaming the whole event through her vlog. Emily never saw that coming and runs into the street trying to make a quick exit, where she is hit by a car, and is then arrested by Police Officers who arrive at these scene with her crawling along the street unable to walk.

The closing commentary as the credits roll pick up the story six months down the track explaining that Emily was sentenced to twenty years in prison - a life she seems to be reasonably well adjusted to. Sean was cleared of all charges and has became a successful professor at a major University somewhere out of town where he lives with his son, Stephanie's vlog expanded to one million subscribers, and her success in handling Emily's case led her to becoming a part-time private detective which she has an aptitude for having brought thirty criminals to justice already.

I enjoyed 'A Simple Favour', a lot, and was very pleasantly surprised by this school Mum's neo-noir dramedy offering that has a simple enough story that is well told, if a little drawn out towards the end; has plenty of twists and turns interspersed with just the right amount of humour; and very well acted out by Kendrick and Lively especially, ably supported by the emerging Golding. The film looks good, has a thumping French pop soundtrack, is smart and slick and pretty much throughout Lively looks a million bucks and has the attitude to go with it in spades, providing the perfect foil for Kendrick's plain Jane, unassuming stay at home Mum who finds herself thrust into extraordinary circumstances and relishing in them. Catch it while you can.

'A Simple Favour' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-