Rent A Simple Favour (2018)

3.3 of 5 from 722 ratings
1h 52min
Rent A Simple Favour (aka A Simple Favor) Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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  • Available formats
Synopsis:
"A Simple Favor", directed by Paul Feig, centers around Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), a mommy vlogger who seeks to uncover the truth behind her best friend Emily's (Blake Lively) sudden disappearance from their small town. Stephanie is joined by Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding) in this stylish thriller filled with twists and betrayals, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty, murder and revenge.
Actors:
, , , , , , , , , Jiah Mavji, Ava LaFramboise, , , , , , , , ,
Directors:
Producers:
Paul Feig, Jessie Henderson
Writers:
Jessica Sharzer, Darcey Bell
Aka:
A Simple Favor
Studio:
Lionsgate Films
Genres:
Drama, Thrillers
Collections:
A Brief History of Films About Sisters, A Brief History of Film...
BBFC:
Release Date:
21/01/2019
Run Time:
112 minutes
Languages:
English Audio Description, English Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.00:1
Colour:
Colour
Bonus:
  • 3 Audio Commentaries with Cast and Crew including Paul Feig, Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively
  • 6 Featurettes
  • Gag Reel
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Flash Mob Alternate Ending
BBFC:
Release Date:
21/01/2019
Run Time:
117 minutes
Languages:
English Audio Description, English Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.00:1
Colour:
Colour
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • 3 Audio Commentaries with Cast and Crew including Paul Feig, Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively
  • 8 Featurettes
  • Gag Reel
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Flash Mob Alternate Ending
BBFC:
Release Date:
21/01/2019
Run Time:
117 minutes
Languages:
English Audio Description, English Dolby TrueHD 7.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing, Spanish
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.00:1
Colour:
Colour
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • 3 Audio Commentaries with Cast and Crew including Paul Feig, Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively
  • 8 Featurettes
  • Gag Reel
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Flash Mob Alternate Ending

More like A Simple Favour

Reviews (9) of A Simple Favour

Very good. - A Simple Favour review by MP

Spoiler Alert
12/10/2018

Saw this in the cinema and was pleasantly surprised. Don't be fooled into thinking it's a 'chick flick' as it's definitely not. It's very good and despite guessing the twist half way through I still enjoyed. Both leads are great and it's the first time I've since Blake Lively in anything and she was excellent in her role. Definitely give it a go!.

9 out of 9 members found this review helpful.

great murder mystery - A Simple Favour review by DR

Spoiler Alert
31/01/2019

Beautifully filmed , it reminded me of how Tom Ford concentrates on every shot having meaning.Also great music , really nice twist to have so many French songs.The plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing throughout although the ending was slightly contrived. Although I wouldn't say I was a fan of the Anna Kendrick films I have seen up to this one, she plays the part to perfection as does Blake Lively.

5 out of 6 members found this review helpful.

Unconvincing comedy mystery - A Simple Favour review by Alphaville

Spoiler Alert
30/01/2019

A vlogging mom (Anna Kendrick) befriends another who disappears. Kendrick is thankfully a bit less irritating than usual, but her limited emotional range and mugging to camera remain an acquired taste. After an hour or so the mystery deepens, but the lightweight tone, as Woody Allen has found out before, robs the plot of any drama. The ho-hum sub-Gone-Girl resolution fails to convince and is eventually played for laughs, with lots of shots of Kendrick vlogging to camera. The alternative ending on the DVD even develops into nauseating musical theatre.

You may well feel short-changed, especially if you’ve been enticed by the brilliant British trailer, which plays mostly without dialogue to an evocative Coeur de Lion song. The song, which isn’t in the film, adds an air of darkness and sophistication that’s at total odds with the film itself. Listen to the album instead.

4 out of 4 members found this review helpful.

Critic review

A Simple Favour (aka A Simple Favor) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Paul Feig has such a gift for crafting comedic characters in his original comedies of Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy that he rarely has to try too hard for a laugh in most of his films. A Simple Favor attempts to but this kind of direction into practice by staging a Gone Girl style mystery where the jokes flow more naturally out of the situations than building scenes assembled specifically for gags. On its very premise, it could easily be a drama-thriller and I almost wish Feig was willing to go that far if only to showcase how much more he can do as a filmmaker.

Based on the novel by Darcey Bell, Stephanie Sommers is the ultimate mom played by Anna Kendrick because who else could be that energetic and driven? She’s a single mom who not only has an Internet show for moms but is so involved with her son’s school functions she signs up for multiple jobs at multiple school events. Stephanie is a wholesome soul despite having lost her husband when he tragically passed away. On the other end of the spectrum is Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), a bad girl who has grown bitter with her upper-class lifestyle that clashes with being a mom. No longer impressed by her writer husband, she takes an interest in Stephanie, inviting her over for drinks. They hit it off although Emily has a way of trying to invoke the worst out of people, leading to Stephanie letting slip a dirty secret of her past.

Then Emily goes missing and turns up dead. Seeking to do the right thing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to mother Emily’s motherless children and becomes romantically involved with her husband. Of course, Emily isn’t dead and a grander scheme is soon uncovered. So what we have here is essentially a female thriller of the conniving Lively squaring off against a kindly Kendrick. The pairing up works rather well considering how naturally both of them slip so well into these roles. There’s such an ease to their presence that they can phase into the area of comedy quite easily and with little to work with. For example, there’s a scene where one evil character is hit with a car and Kendrick tries to make some quiet comedic commentary on how the evil victim won’t stop moving. A louder comedy might have made Kendrick stammer more but she nails this scene quite well with the right amount of believable and amusing dialogue.

The big problem is that many of the outside elements fall back on old comedic stagings. The kids speak in insulting adult voices of cussing up a storm and talking casually about not understanding death and being easily angered by car crashes. One of the dad’s in the school’s parent group tries to put on the whole super-dad approach by seeing himself more as a mother than a dad, acting as though he’s part of a gang where he’s got Stephanie’s back. The aspects are not exactly terrible but they feel like comedic elements from very different movies and stick out as odd sore thumbs from somewhat alternative Feig production.

Feig tries to balance the drama with the comedy in A Simple Favour and it’s a bit surprising just how much of it works. It has a handful of scenes that are great whereas others merely meander around a decent thriller plot. It’s a worthy film for the performances of Kendrick and Lively alone but I can’t help but feel how Feig would fair on a film that better embraces a more earnest attempt at dark thrillers with mere sprinklings of comedic spice. It’s a film that’s certainly not Feig’s best but it does make me hopeful to see what he produces next.

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