Disclaimer:  The views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent those of allgames.com.

Introduction to A Simple Favor Movie

Unlike some of the other movies I’ve reviewed, I actually saw the trailer for the movie A Simple Favor and planned to see it when it was released.  I expected A Simple Favor movie to be a light drama with a plot dealing with one character wanting to assume or emulate the life of another. To a certain extent, my assumption was correct; however, towards the end, this movie added a hint of suspense as well as a twist. 

Synopsis of A Simple Favor Movie

This is the second movie I saw recently where the use of social media was at the heart of the story. The previous movie I saw was entitled Searching where the entire movie was shown from the viewpoint of social media.

Fortunately, A Simple Favor does not go to this extreme since many scenes of the movie are filmed outside of social media.  In A Simple Favor movie, the main character, Stephanie Smothers played by Anna Kendrick has a social media presence on youtube where she posts and discusses cooking recipes and other advice tips. As the drama unfolds in the movie, her youtube views steadily increases, especially when she starts to incorporate scenes other than cooking in her content.  In the midst of all this is a homicide where just about everyone, including herself is a suspect. As expected, her youtube views rose substantially as the movie continues and she adds “real-time” events to the content.

Predictability of A Simple Favor Movie

In addition to Anna Kendrick, A Simple Favor stars an actress by the name of Blake Lively, whose Anna Kendrick’s character seemed to envy -- from the way she dressed to her confident mannerisms. Suffice it to say, they seemed to be complete opposites. After meeting, she offers to babysit Blake Lively’s son after school and becomes concerned when she does not return to pick him up.  She resorts to using her youtube channel to reach out to others to find Blake Lively's character, the child’s parent.

Spoiler Alert:  When this character was finally located destroyed, i knew the person found was not really Blake LIvely's character. How did I know? One -- because Blake Lively is a "big name" star of the movie and had not been in the movie long before she showed up destroyed and two -- because I knew the old trick of having a twin surface in the movie to explain how her destroyed character was seen around town -- even though everyone thought she had perished.

Pros of A Simple Favor Movie

I categorize A Simple Favor movie as a light drama that did not have any gruesome scenes. Additionally, the storyline was clear, without any ambiguous actions or puzzles that you had to try to figure out.

The title of the movie ties in nicely with the movie scenes since Anna Kendrick’s character was doing Blake Lively’s character “A Simple Favor” by babysitting her son. By the way,  Anny Kendrick's character had a son of her own.

Spoiler alert:  There is sort of a twist at the end of the movie that caused her youtube’s viewership to increase to viral numbers. In fact, this was probably the most unexpected scene in the movie. You will know what I’m referring to if you watch A Simple Favor movie.

Cons of A Simple Favor Movie

As I alluded to above, this movie is mostly predictable as anyone should be able to figure out “who dunnit” without any difficulty.

Since the movie is predictable, there is no real suspense in A Simple Favor.  You know that the estranged married (now "widowed") husband will have an affair with Anna Kendrick's character and they would be discovered by Blake Lively’s character.

There were no really “hard-hitting” acting in this movie.  For example, I think the range of emotions should have been exaggerated on screen, especially when it was thought that Blake Lively’s character had been destroyed. In fact, the husband especially seemed to carry on as usual.

Personally, I did not like the scene where Anna Kendrick’s character started singing  -- a throw-back similar to one of her scenes in her movie Pitch Perfect. To me -- this was not an original act and was an attempt to try to make her song go viral as one of her songs did in the Pitch Perfect movies -- which it did not..

Assessment of A Simple Favor Movie

After it’s all said and done, I think A Simple Favor movie is more suitable as a Lifetime movie, or to be seen on DVD or streaming services.  If you are a fan of Anna Kendrick or of Blake Lively -- then you may choose to see A Simple Favor to see them on the big screen. Otherwise, you may want to pass on this movie or wait until you can see it for free. Fortunately, I used my MoviePass to see A Simple Favor, so I didn’t feel like I wasted any money on it.  

Rating of A Simple Favor Movie

Based on a rating of 1 star to 5 stars with 5 stars being the best, I rate A Simple Favor Movie 2 stars.