“A Simple Favor” Really Is a Whole Movie About Anna Kendrick Wanting Blake Lively to Ruin Her Life (Same)

Warning: Spoilers ahead for A Simple Favor. Stop reading this and go watch it!!!!


Picture this: Your day is almost over. It has been an ordinary day. You did all your usual things — say, for example, you recorded a new episode of your mommy vlog (stay with me here). And you did the simple things you enjoy doing — say, for example, you signed up to volunteer at your kid’s preschool (please stay with me). Your day is almost over. You’ll go home, go through your usual nighttime routine, and go to bed, only to do it all again tomorrow.

But. Something interrupts the rhythm. Someone, rather. You’re just standing there, and she steps out of a car slowly — in slow motion, to be exact. It’s raining, but the raindrops can’t touch her. Sure, she’s got an umbrella, but there’s more than just that shielding her from the wetness — an invisible vortex that envelopes her, makes her untouchable, unknowable. She walks toward you, her hair bouncing so emphatically you can almost hear it throb. You catch a glimpse of her face, and your breath catches. You notice the beauty mark to the right (your left) of her nose. Stunned into silence, you notice that this is perhaps the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen. How have you not seen her before? Haven’t you seen her before?

In A Simple Favor, Blake Lively plays Emily Nelson, the whirlwind monster of a Mommi who struts into Anna Kendrick’s Stephanie Smothers’ life exactly as described above, wreaking havoc almost immediately, as she does with everyone she encounters. She’s so beautiful and mysterious that her writer husband has had writer’s block since the moment he met her (every jab she takes at his lack of creativity gives me life).

And he’s not the only one who she has creatively destroyed like some sort of artistic succubus. Linda Cardellini plays a character who I have affectionately dubbed “Knives Lesbian,” a very queer painter and definite ex of Emily who could only paint Emily when they were together and now can only paint knives in the wake of Emily leaving her and ruining her life. (Cardellini, as she often does, manages to give a standout performance with very little screentime.)

A Simple Favor gets off on blending and blurring genres. Not quite an all-out dark thriller in the vain of Gone Girl, it does borrow from that genre but, even more accurately, from Lifetime movies. Incest, revenge arson, frame jobs, affairs, and secret siblings all make appearances in this tableau of fuckery. It’s a Mommi murder mystery that knows exactly how ridiculous is, the whole cast in on the joke.

It’s all a turn of events for Paul Feig, who has directed straight-up comedies like Spy, The Heat, and Bridesmaids during his prolific career, but he’s bizarrely the right person for the job. He along with screenwriter Jessica Sharzer have adapted a novel that was universally panned for being convoluted, stiff, and miserable into something that, yes, is still convoluted but in the best way? It’s not taking itself too seriously and yet it isn’t one of those situations where it’s so bad it’s good. It’s dishy and fun and prods all sorts of tropes from the Lifetime canon in a way that feels more playful than derivative. That early scene depicting Emily’s entrance into Stephanie’s life encompasses everything the movie does well with its drama and seduction, laced with a pointed and self-aware sense of humor. Stephanie’s sense of being knocked off balance is palpable. Emily’s allure, heart-stopping. A Simple Favor can cut deep even when it’s having fun.

Everything down to the sound editing is a tantalizing combo of seductive and frightening. The snap of Emily’s umbrella (“she definitely topped that umbrella” – Riese) perfectly punctuates that grand entrance she makes. When they get back to Emily’s house, she starts removing pieces of her, like, 75-piece suit?! And Stephanie can barely contain her arousal at all the whips of each. piece. coming. off.

Because yes, have I mentioned that it’s also incredibly gay? From the moment Emily enters, Stephanie falls under her spell, like Emily’s husband, like Knives Lesbian. They even kiss, just moments after Stephanie’s crying about her loneliness (A Simple Favor often touches on that quivering line between grief and sex), and while Emily might move on quickly, Stephanie doesn’t seem to. So much of what Emily does unnerves her in a way she can hardly wrap her mind around. Mere minutes after meeting, Emily’s already calling her baby and, sometimes, because this movie is clearly trying to kill me, “baby girl.”

“Baby, if you apologize again, I’m going to have to slap the sorry out of you,” Emily tells Stephanie on their first date*, and I had to stifle a scream.

*Okay, it’s just the first time Stephanie goes to Emily’s house, but Stephanie sees Emily’s naked body (in a painting) and Emily makes them strong gin martinis, and Stephanie does a little dance for a bemused Emily while French music plays, so yeah! It’s a date!!!!!!

Blake Lively, it turns out, can also wear the fuck out of a suit. She shows up to a meeting with Stephanie in a cemetery wearing one that shows the entirety of her boobs, and it’s a wonder Stephanie doesn’t just crawl into her own grave right then and there.

But perhaps the most important Gay Fact about this movie is that it was written by the same woman who directed “Layup,” the single greatest episode of The L Word. I had already decided this movie was manufactured in a lab specifically for me (mommis! murder! moms making out after crying! REVENGE ARSON! these are a few of my favorite things!), but learning that it was written by the woman behind the single episode of television I have watched the most amount of times makes me feel cosmically connected to A Simple Favor, pulled into its chaotic orbit like Stephanie is to Emily.

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, short stories, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear or are forthcoming in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 913 articles for us.

36 Comments

  1. you are not joking when you say “Blake Lively, it turns out, can also wear the fuck out of a suit.”

    i want to see it again solely to watch her wear suits and curse.

  2. Okay but doesn’t she just end up sleeping with the woman’s husband? This movie is way more of a queer tease than I’m interested in watching.

  3. this movie had a confusing tone – by the end it was kind of entirely comedy? BUT it doesn’t matter because BLAKE LIVELY KILLED ME DEAD. Also, I would propose that in this movie, Blake Lively is actually…

    Daddi?

    • Queer girl, I have to agree with you that Blake Lively’s character is not mommi, but femme daddy in this. I think the confusing thing is that the *movie itself* is extremely mommi. The mommi-est movie I’ve ever seen.
      But that fucking top energy Emily exudes? daddy as hell

      • After the first five minutes of this movie I just wanted to shout in the theatre “oh boy I can’t wait for the kinky fan fiction AU of this movie”. Blake Lively in this is the toppiest top to ever top and I wanted her to fuck. me. up.

  4. I loved this movie, and was kinda happy it was more funny than scary! When Blake Lively came on screen for the first time I turned to a friend with my jaw dropped like ahhhh I never want to look at anyone else ever again

  5. Also I had a moment of pause about Emily’s character, because is she another duplicitous bisexual?
    Ultimately I think she was a duplicitous person who also happened to be bisexual rather than having bisexuality be the focus of her duplicity. So while it’s not perfect, it fits within the world of the movie, and the fact that queerness is overt rather than implied helps a lot.

    • Yes! I was texting my friend when I was recommending it to her that it somehow completely avoids the queer=evil trope!! I don’t understand how it doesn’t fall into that trap, but it really doesn’t!

  6. LOVE THIS REVIEW KAYLA
    LOVE THIS FILM

    additional gays to mention:
    andrew rannells plays a gay parent who refers to himself as a mom, which i love
    patti harrison, a trans comedian, has a really brief role as the assistant to emily’s boss

  7. I’ve never been particularly attracted Blake Lively, but there is nothing I am more into than a confident toppy femme who seems a little scornful/condescending, and wowwwww this movie delivered.

  8. I haven’t seen A Simple Favor yet, but this:

    “I had already decided this movie was manufactured in a lab specifically for me”

    is exactly how I felt about Ocean’s 8 so if ASF evokes the same feeling I am HERE FOR IT.

  9. THIS MOVIE WAS SO GAY.

    also really great, I actually laughed a bunch more times watching this than the last few comedies I’ve seen.

    I went thinking the gayness would be super covert and basically just because we like to read gay into everything we can and then I kept tugging on my friend’s arm and whispering to her every 5 second because it was SUPER OVERT.

    Also, I’m writing this from beyond the grave because I died when she said “Mommi needs a drink” and I am now a ghost.

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