ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR (2025)

Mommy blogger Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) and fashionista-turned-criminal Emily (Blake Lively) are back in an unnecessary sequel to surprise hit A Simple Favor (2018). Expect all the twists and turns of the original campy thriller, all dialled up to a ridiculous new level of unbelievability. Think of a soap opera twist, and Another Simple Favor will have it.

Stephanie has pivoted from being a blogger to amateur detective and is now about to publish her first true crime novel. During her mostly empty first book reading, Emily waltzes back into Stephanie’s life. The film isn’t too concerned with answering how Emily is allowed to walk about free when she was imprisoned for murdering her secret identical twin sister and trying to murder her husband. Like everything else in Another Simple Favor, you’ll just have to go with it.

The film predominantly takes place on the Italian island of Capri, where Emily’s marrying Dante (Michele Morrone), who may or may not be in the mafia. Whatever the reason, the pair are marrying; no one thinks it’s for love. The setting is stunning, but every possible Italian mafia stereotype is on show from the moment they land on the island through to Dante’s mother (Laeta Kalogridis) trying to ruin his wedding.

Stephanie is invited because she owes Emily another simple favour after sending her to prison, sleeping with her husband, and then writing a book about the whole thing. Despite her best instincts, Stephanie finds herself agreeing to serve as a maid of honour. Luckily, her now-tween son Miles (Joshua Satine) has been shipped off to summer camp, allowing her to pack up her resort wear and head to Italy.

Once on the island, with her book agent (a barely seen Alex Newell) in tow, Stephanie finds herself confronted with familiar faces. Emily’s now ex-husband Sean (Henry Golding) is back, only he’s less of a suave heartthrob and now just a bitter drunk. Emily’s long-estranged mother (Elizabeth Perkins, replacing Jean Smart) is back and appears to either be suffering from a psychotic break or dementia. She is joined by Emily’s aunt Linda (a scenery-chewing Allison Janney), who is clearly hiding her own secret.

Every character is in a bleak stage of their life, so it feels insensitive to make them a butt of the joke. The comedy aimed at Emily’s mother and the indignities the script puts her through are especially hard to swallow. A naturally sympathetic character who had been dealt a tough hand in life, the way the story handles her is incredibly uncomfortable to watch.

Not long into this lavish event, someone ends up dead. Everyone is a suspect, including Stephanie, Emily, the bride’s eccentric family, and Dante’s conniving matriarch. Another Simple Favor hints at a plot in which Stephanie uses her true crime writing knowledge to play detective, but is ultimately more concerned with the other hundred twists and turns. There is an enjoyable crime caper set in Italy hidden somewhere inside this film; it’s just really, really deeply hidden.

The first hour of Another Simple Favor is surprisingly dull. It’s slow-paced and does everything you expect it to, sticking to a formula. The second hour is a wild ride that throws out too many subplots and characters without any consideration for common sense or the rules of reality. Gone are any of the nuances about motherhood and social media influences. Instead, expect incest, murder, mafia, and poor European stereotypes.

For all its flaws, Another Simple Favor looks stunning. Every scene looks like it comes from the pages of a high-fashion magazine. Renée Ehrlich Kalfus’s costumes are this film’s MVP, dressing Emily in a selection of increasingly dramatic outfits and Stephanie in more demure attire. However, it does feel like the writing, plot, and characters were an afterthought to the costumes and setting.

Written once more by Jessica Sharzer along with Laeta Kalogridis (Altered Carbon), this sequel is confident in its ridiculousness and tries so hard to be camp it’s more like mandated fun than a genuine good time. At times, the writing feels like someone pumped the original script through a computer and told it to recreate the themes without any of the creativity and genuine joy.

The final result is a screenplay nowhere near the magic of the original, which appears to have been something accidentally walked into rather than put together. The dark, sexy wit of A Simple Favor is lost in the pit of shock value and style over substance. Another Simple Favor rehashes the themes and shocks of the first film and turns them up to an unbearable 120%. More does not mean better, as the last half an hour of this film proves.

Director Paul Feig (Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) is aware that the film is ridiculous and runs with it. It really feels like no one in the creative team took a step back, used critical thinking, and considered editing the many subplots. The actors thankfully realise the film they are in and are delivering the highest level of scenery chewing physically possible. Allison Janney is working at an Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) level of camp, but what else could you do with this script?

Blake Lively is doing too much as psychopathic Emily, pushing the character into a parody. She’s having fun sauntering around in black veils, tweed suits, and sky-high heels, but sometimes it’s unwatchable. It might work as a side character, but it makes an unbearable leading lady. Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect 3) remains likeable as Stephanie, trying to maintain some grounding in a story that is not worthy of her natural talents. Alex Newell, Henry Golding, and Taylor Ortega are so underwritten and given so little screen time, you have to wonder if they simply signed up for the free Italian holiday.

Based on a bestselling novel by Darcey Bell, A Simple Favor was a surprisingly likeable thriller that balanced all the soap opera twists. It had secret identities, missing twins, and criminal pasts, but it was also a story of two mothers bonding. The sequel took all the wrong lessons from the first film, concentrating more on the twists and less on the interpersonal relationship between frenemies Stephanie and Emily.

USA | 2025 | 120 MINUTES | 2.76:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Paul Feig.
writers: Jessica Sharzer & Laeta Kalogridis (based on characters created by Darcey Bell).
starring: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Elizabeth Perkins, Michele Morrone, Elena Sofia Ricci, Henry Goding & Allison Janney.