2010s comedy maestro Paul Feig has famously never done a sequel, and the film he chose to make a sequel to is an unlikely choice: the modestly successful Gone Girl riff, A Simple Favor. That sequel — the moderately cleverly titled Another Simple Favor (the only clever thing about it, really) — is competently made and moderately entertaining, but loses the spark of what made the first one so special.
Another Simple Favor Review
Another Simple Favor picks up years after the first movie, as Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) has written a true crime book about her murderous ex-best friend, Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), who is released on parole and asks Stephanie to be her maid of honor in her lavish Italian wedding. And it wouldn’t be a sequel to A Simple Favor if there weren’t a mystery to solve.
Ultimately, the biggest issue with Another Simple Favor is its pacing. The first hour desperately wants to remind the audience about all the things that happened in the first movie, so by the time the mystery actually kicks off in the second half, the script is just throwing twist and turn at the audience to the point they will walk away feeling flustered.
It’s obvious that the writers didn’t want this to be a mere re-hash of the original film, and they deserve credit for taking this sequel in a different direction. Unfortunately, that new direction is no more interesting than a regurgitation of the previous movie would have been. It’s a mafioso whodunnit that doesn’t do a lot to defy or even poke fun at its tropes.
There are some genuinely funny, laugh-out-loud moments throughout the film, but even those parts are generic. Much of the comedic hijinks that the characters get up to is stuff that we’ve seen in plenty of other movies before. The cast sells it well enough to get laughs, but many of the funniest moments are continuations or one-ups of recurring gags from the first movie.
With the sequel taking the story to Italy, one would obviously expect Another Simple Favor to be a handsome production, and for the most part, it does not disappoint. The costume design in the film, much like its predecessor’s, is sleek, modern, and almost distractingly gorgeous. Theodore Shapiro’s score is also fun and atmospheric, if a little stereotypical in some of the motifs it uses.
As with A Simple Favor, the best aspect of this sequel is the duo of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. While Kendrick is doing her usual cutesy schtick — albeit quite well, mind you — Lively again steps into the role that it feels like she was born to play. It’s so fun to watch Lively be this catty but strangely alluring socialite. And while it’s best not to reveal exactly how, she adds more depth and complexity to the role than she even had in the last movie.
Of course, any sequel has to go even bigger than its predecessor in terms of cast, and Another Simple Favor has a few new additions, two of which are particularly notable. Allison Janney plays a role that, unfortunately, feels incredibly indistinctive. Although Janney isn’t bad in the role, it also feels like her talents are put to use. The other big addition to the cast is Michele Morrone (365 Days), who plays a generic Italian mafioso well enough if not particularly impressively.
Is Another Simple Favor worth watching?
The performances of these new additions are indicative of the issues of Another Simple Favor as a whole, though. It’s fine, too conventional for its own good, and perhaps even a little too comfortable. Would we be judging this as harshly were it not the long-awaited sequel to a film that was almost spoofing the genre that it has become? Probably not. It’s fine enough, but the type of streaming movie that is destined to get a ton of watches immediately before disappearing within the algorithm.
Another Simple Favor premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival, which runs March 7-15 in Austin, TX.
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