Another Simple Favor (2025)

Score: 3 / 5

There's something to be said for the kind of sequel that takes the best-loved parts of an original story, usually key characters (or actors) and glamorous or silly or sexy plot points, and ships them to exotic international places. Think of murder mysteries with Poirot or Jessica Fletcher; think of family adventures like Herbie or spy thrillers with Ethan Hunt; heck, think of road pictures with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby or Abbott and Costello. Rian Johnson is doing it with Benoit Blanc and Steven Rowley is doing it with Guncle Patrick. I certainly didn't expect it from any follow-up to Paul Feig's sleazy, cutesy romp through thick suburban psychology in A Simple Favor, but if that's what he wants to give us, I'm willing to buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Five years after the events of the first film, Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is still touring with her book, but it's clear sales are dropping and her fans want a follow-up. As if on cue, Emily (Blake Lively) returns in her signature stylish fashion, released on appeal from prison and freshly engaged, asking and coercing Stephanie to be her maid of honor. The lucky man, it turns out, is Dante Versano (Michele Morrone), a wealthy Italian man whose family has close ties to organized crime. Eager to renew interest in her vlog and book -- and to gather new material for a real-time sequel -- Stephanie agrees, and the cast sets off to Capri for a sun-drenched romp in the Mediterranean. Feig knows what we want in a sequel, so the costumes and scenery are intensified almost to distraction, and the plot becomes too convoluted for any simple description. In other words, things get very pretty and very messy.

The energy of Another Simple Favor is wildly different from the first; I'd compare its tonal shift to that between seasons of the series The Flight Attendant, with the first being more psychological and the second being more spectacular. Comedic elements here are both more contrived and more forced, but it's never unwelcome; the screenwriters perhaps watched too many classic-Hollywood ensemble comedies during their writing sessions, as zany antics threaten to overtake the plot at every turn. Too, a thematic concern here: the first film took an incisive look at motherhood in a digital age and interrogated what it means for a woman to be successful and a mother and, maybe both, whereas this sequel attempts to question the relationship between identity, loyalty, and criminality, with distinctly diminishing payoff. I'm still rather confused by what, if anything, this film is actually saying, because I was so enamored with its visuals to care much about its theming.

The soapy drama never disappoints, though, and the ensemble clearly enjoys bringing it to life. Henry Golding returns as Sean with some delicious drunken one-liners aimed at both his exes. Emily's mother Margaret is recast from Jean Smart to Elizabeth Perkins, though she isn't given much to do here, and Allison Janney joins the company as Emily's Aunt Linda with a welcome vibe that feels not unlike your own aunt wandering in and causing some ruckus while having a hell of a good time. Unfortunately, none of the new characters are given much to do, so they mostly drift in and out of frame unceremoniously. The camera worships only Kendrick and Lively, as do we, and I confess some frustration at the teased and sorely lacking sapphic subtext from the original; at least they look good and are doing the most to keep attention on themselves. Instead of pining for Emily, now Stephanie is worried about being murdered by her best frenemy. When they split into their own misadventures, the film lags, but their explosive energy together makes it worth the watch.

My personal bias against organized crime flicks -- I just don't care about mafia mania or the dynamics of a looming mob war -- means that I felt at least a third of this film was totally disposable. So many scenes, especially with Dante's family matriarch Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci), could and should have been excised in favor of more tete-a-tetes with the characters we know and care more about, disrupting tea time and bachelorette parties and the marriage of (SPOILER ALERT) convenience. Instead, we're given a story so bizarre and impossible and laughable that it loses itself in the mire it's created; the film's so escapist it forgets that we should also care about these characters as people more than just eye candy. Not that Lively's outfits aren't gobsmacking and Oscar-worthy, I would have just enjoyed more of her torrid family drama and Gone Girl-esque escapades than we got here.