Another Simple Favor, Review: Hope, Charity, Faith and the other ‘f’ word forever
An author who writes reality fiction and has a huge following on her ‘Moms’ social platform; she spills the beans on a gym instructor at a school, who films his children in the buff; he shoots and kills himself; she also provides material in her next book on a woman who, she says, murdered her sister; she sleeps with her half-brother; she has an obese black woman as an publishing agent who does very little besides drinking bottles and bottles of wine; she is separated from her husband and has custody of her child, yet she sleeps around, and her son talks to her about it; the woman, who went to jail based on her exposé, arrives suddenly at her current book launch, released on bail, and invites her to her wedding, which will take place in lush Capri, Italy; the woman is also a sex maniac and earlier worked in a bar as a sex worker; her husband-to-be is a Mafia boss in Capri, but when the author googles his name, she finds nothing about him; the author agrees to be her bridesmaid, though she has some fear that the woman might kill her for exposing her murderous act; the Mafia boss has a rival, but there is a delicate truce between the two Mafias, and the boss of the other Mafia comes to the wedding, but will not allow the author to take pictures of him or any of his gang; the bride to be also invites her ex-husband and her child from that marriage is also present; her ex-husband is killed in the bathroom, while being naked and having a shower; more murders follow; a lady FBI agent is tracking the author, though she seems to be a greenhorn in the profession; there is an Italian Police Inspector who believes that the author committed at least one of the murders; she is put in solitary confinement in her hotel room, but manages to escape in the chamber-maid’s cart (shades of Shivaji Maharaj escaping from Aurangzeb’s custody?), in what is supposed to be a comic scene, and is, admittedly, funny, though completely incredible; the mothers of the couple are invited to the wedding, as is the bride’s aunt, a suspicious character; it turns out that the bride was one among triplets, named Hope, Charity and Faith, but charity was supposedly born dead (why do I see Manmohan Desai sitting next to me in the Excel Entertainment preview theatre, and applauding?); no, she wasn’t born dead, it was her aunt, who served as mid-wife, who took her away at birth, to train her in high profile crimes, mainly blackmail and murder; at the wedding, the Mafia boss burns his ‘prenup’ with a cigarette lighter (have no idea what a prenup is? AI to the rescue: A prenup, or prenuptial agreement, is a legal contract signed by a couple before marriage, outlining how their assets, debts, and other financial matters will be handled, if the marriage ends in divorce or death. It essentially provides a framework for dividing property and addressing financial obligations in the event of separation); one of the sisters is dead, allegedly killed by the bride, and another materialises, all-grown-up, with an agenda of her own; the groom has been having a homosexual relationship with his arch-enemy, his rival Mafia boss; everybody uses words related to male and female genitals, breasts, intercourse, fornication, et al, at the drop of a hat; strangely, in a film that has all of the above, there is no nudity, except for the man in the shower, and even there, they refrain from showing his genitals; won’t viewers feel offended if they did; on the contrary, they expect nudity and much more, given the general sexy mounting and the ‘f’ filled dialogue track; the newly discovered Charity is in lesbian love with her twin sister, and they have a lesbian encounter, which saves the bride from being shot dead.
If this is your cup of tea, be the Guest of Amazon Prime and MGM’s original movie, Another Simple Favor, described as a black comedy, which has two minor American blacks in its cast, one male, one female. It ends with one woman asking another for a simple favor, and when asked what favor, she hands her a white sheet of paper. We don’t know what is written on that paper, because the scene is cut right there, marking the end of the film. Does it mean, God forbid, a sequel is in the offing? This one is already a sequel to the 2018 original.
The movie stars Anna Kendrick as Stephanie Smothers (the surname is punned upon as a way of smothering someone with a pillow, which is actually the case in the film, though it is not Stephanie who is guilty of that crime), an author and Miles’s mother
Blake Lively as Emily Nelson, Nicky’s mother
Henry Golding as Sean Townsend, Emily’s ex-husband and Nicky’s father (the man in the shower; Psycho, anyone?)
Bashir Salahuddin as Detective Summerville (the black guy who is Stephanie’s inside man)
Elizabeth Perkins as Margaret McLinden, Emily’s mother. Perkins replaces Jean Smart, who portrayed the character in the first film.
Michele Morrone as Dante Versano, Emily’s fiancé
Elena Sofia Ricci as Portia Versano, the mother
Allison Janney as Aunt Linda McLinden, Emily’s aunt and Margaret’s older sister
Joshua Satine as Miles Smothers, Stephanie’s son
Ian Ho as Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Townsend-Nelson, Emily and Sean’s son
Kelly McCormack as Stacy
Taylor Ortega as FBI Agent Irene Walker
Lorenzo de Moor as Matteo Bartolo, the rival Mafia boss
Jake Tapper, a real-life TV anchor as himself
Returning to reprise their roles in the first edition, A Simple Favor, are director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, Ghostbusters, A Simple Favor, and Last Christmas), actors Anna Kendrick Blake Lively, Henry Golding and Andrew Rannells.
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Rating: * ½
Trailer: https://youtu.be/QWajCwdC_TM
