SXSW film festival: Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively return in Amazon’s ridiculous yet glossily enjoyable follow-up to 2018’s fan favoriteOn paper, there are plenty of reasons to make a follow-up to A Simple Favor, Paul Feig’s 2018 comic mystery film starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively as two delusive, scheming suburban moms. Though it gestured at being a serious thriller – a sort of Gone Girl for cable channel – the film, based on the 2017 novel by Darcey Bell, ultimately devolved into ridiculousness, untethered from logic yet with plenty of road for more twists. Lively’s Emily Nelson, an archly manipulative psychopath straight out of a Justin Baldoni lawsuit, remains her best work since Gossip Girl. And most pertinent to Amazon MGM studios, the film found post-theatrical success on streaming, becoming a modern camp classic during the pandemic.But Feig, by his own admission at the SXSW film festival on Friday evening, is wary of sequels, and for good reason – rarely does lightnin...
"Another Simple Favor," a sequel to the 2018 film, is a supremely silly and stylishly absurd movie that prioritizes fun over suspense or thrills. While it doesn't recapture the magic of the original, it embraces its ridiculousness and camp sensibilities. The film picks up where the first left off, with Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively reprising their roles in a plot filled with twists.
