Good Afternoon Lovelies, 

Paul Feig will forever be a hero of mine. The man helped me get a first in my degree, for his honesty when I interviewed him for my dissertation. Back then, we discussed his well-known comedies. However, today marks the release of a new chapter for Feig. A thrilling one at that!

Placing Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in the centre of the big screen adaption of A Simple Favour, based on the Darcey Bell’s novel, Feig has done a Taylor Swift and reinvented himself and his direction with this new chapter in his delightful story. Kendrick plays mum vlogger Stephanie, a single mother to her son, who becomes obsessed with the lifestyle of Lively’s Emily. A woman who knows what she wants from life and how to manipulatively get it. Until she goes missing.

As Stephanie and Emily’s husband, Sean, played by Henry Golding, search for her – whilst getting wrapped up in their own romance – Stephanie faces an identity crisis. One that she isn’t sure if it has been planted on her or not. The film is a pure mixture of delight, humour (thank you bitchy dad Andrew Rannells) and shock at the lives of those on screen.

There is a sense that you are not meant to like any of those you are witnessing. You are not meant to connect with them. But you are meant to be intrigued by them. And there is no denying that. Lively and Kendrick play off each other in a way that makes you want to watch them in everything. Lively brings back the essence of Serena van der Woodsen if she had been left to be brought up in the way her family wanted her to be. Whilst Kendrick plays the vlogger mum in such a way that you could imagine her having her own show like the one, she presents.

The film does slide in places and instead of going full-on Hitchcock noir it loses some of its darkness. Even becoming a bit over the top with incestuous relationships and affairs. Yet, this doesn’t stop you from wanting to find out about these characters and what will become of them. It is a cocktail mixed of Gone Girl with The Girl on a Train that the ladies in the film sip to bring joy. All because of the way Feig still manages to bring in his very slick sense of comedy.

Unlike anything we have seen from Feig before, A Simple Favour flows like a French drama with the beauty of a dark tale to guide it. With an all-star cast, a gripping script and a storyline that will leave you wondering about it for weeks, it is a new chapter in the director’s story and one that I can’t wait to turn the page on to see more like.

There so, I am giving this a simple…