‘Another Simple Favor’: Blake Lively’s New Film Is a Campy Distraction From Scandal

AUSTIN, Texas—Late Friday afternoon, the crowd stationed outside of South by Southwest’s biggest theater hoisted large balloons shaped like martini glasses—a branded homage to the first A-list premiere at this year’s festival. As the stars of Another Simple Favor arrived in downtown Austin, they paused to snap selfies with the admirers cheering for them behind barricades. One of those actresses, Anna Kendrick, recently directed a movie called Woman of the Hour, but it was her colleague, Blake Lively, who commanded that title in and outside of the Paramount Theatre.

Not a word was said—at least publicly—about the other topic that has streered so many eyes toward Lively lately. Although new legal melodrama concerning her and Justin Baldoni emerges almost daily at this point, Lively has maintained her game face, appearing at Saturday Night Live‘s 50th-anniversary celebration and now at SXSW’s opening night.

On the red carpet, Kendrick and director Paul Feig dodged vague questions about what one reporter referred to as “everything happening.” Only one person seemed perturbed by Lively’s presence, a lone woman in athleisure holding a sign outside the Paramount that read “Justice for Justin Baldoni.”

SXSW loves a rowdy crowd-pleaser, and they found an appropriate one in Another Simple Favor, the gratuitous but moderately fun follow-up to 2018’s chic A Simple Favor. The original was based on a Gillian Flynn-esque book by Darcey Bell, but this one, which streams on Prime Video May 1, strikes out on its own.

Mommy vlogger turned crime sleuth Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) is summoned to an Italian island to serve as maid of honor to Emily Nelson (Lively), the glamorous viper she took down after so desperately wanting her friendship. It’s an odd request—why would Emily want her there, and why would Stephanie say yes? (Granted, content creators have done far more suspicious things.)

Another Simple Favor answers those questions over the course of two campy hours, ratcheting up its predecessor’s absurdities with a cast of characters that includes dressed-to-kill con artists, Italian mafiosos, a daffy FBI agent, armed bodyguards, and a surprise wedding guest who makes the sibling-incest backstory from the first movie look tame.

How many lifetimes have passed since A Simple Favor became one of 2018’s surprise breakouts? On the heels of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, the movie’s ability to wink at its own preposterousness made the dialogue crackle—a neo-noir soap opera for the Instagram age. Another Simple Favor sometimes achieves that same zippiness, but it’s offset by the many expository monologues required to shepherd the movie’s labyrinthine plot.

Emily’s fiancé (Michele Morrone) belongs to a mysterious mob family with hidden motives, and a couple of gaudy long-lost relatives (Allison Janney and Elizabeth Perkins) show up in Italy to embellish the mythology surrounding Emily’s childhood. What’s more interesting is tracking the cultural jargon that has emerged in the years since A Simple Favor opened. This movie has a lot more variations on the word “c--t,” plus a well-timed reference to Avatar: The Way of Water.

Midway through Another Simple Favor, I was reminded of another sequel that sent its protagonists to a European island and concocted a far-fetched plot to justify the excursion. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again doesn’t underline its own silliness as much as Another Simple Favor does, but it doesn’t need to—that giddy quality leaps off the screen. Here, it feels more strained.

Kendrick and Lively still have great chemistry, but Lively swanning around in a sunhat so floppy it touches her elbows is low-hanging comedy. There’s no Cher to electrify the third act, only a contest where everyone seems to be out-crazying everyone else. When a wedding guest dies in dramatic fashion, Stephanie snaps into private-detective mode and finds herself embroiled in a head-spinning blackmail scheme that doesn’t leave enough room for Kendrick and Lively’s repartee.

While introducing the SXSW screening on Friday, Feig said Another Simple Favor is the first sequel he’s made because sequels so rarely work. This one doesn’t prove him wrong. At the same time, it’s an amusing enough diversion that makes sense as a Prime Video release (even if the first one collected nearly $100 million at the global box office.)

The stars seemed to have a good time making it, because what’s to dislike about an Italian work trip? Given the warm reception they received in Austin, plenty of fans will appreciate the martinis, Louboutins, and incest a second time.