A Simple Favor (2018)

IMDb plot summary: Stephanie is a single mother with a parenting vlog who befriends Emily, a secretive upper-class woman who has a child at the same elementary school. When Emily goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to investigate.

Directed by Paul Feig.  Stars Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, and Henry Golding.

A Simple Favor stars Anna Kendrick as a naive single mother who befriends a glamorous public relations executive, played by Blake Lively. When Lively goes missing, Kendrick, always eager to help fix things, steps in to try to solve the case as well as look after Lively's son and husband left behind, and things get complicated. The first half of this film is a lot more compelling than the second. It's one of those mysteries where as the mystery gets revealed, it's less interesting than the dynamic that was set up to begin with. The scenes of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively interacting early on are magnetic, and I could watch a whole movie just about their friendship and their contrasting levels of comfort and confidence and what they do and do not share with each other. As it goes on, it gets messy and plays one too many cards of "who's the actual good guy," and when it finally ends I found it unsatisfying. I don't know that it was a bad ending per se, probably the one that we needed to have, but it just didn't hold up to the excitement of the first half of the movie. 

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 A Simple Favor (2018)

📊 Ranked #1032/4044 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Ender's Game (#2017 → #2021)

beat Sarah, Plain and Tall (#1007 → #1025)

lost to The Fallen Idol (held at #503)

lost to Point Break (held at #754)

lost to Sleight (#881 → #853)

lost to Hannah and Her Sisters (#944 → #947)

lost to What's Eating Gilbert Grape (held at #975)

lost to The Impostors (#991 → #927)

beat The Pursuit of Happyness (#999 → #1016)

lost to Re-Animator (#995 → #984)

lost to Trick 'r Treat (#997 → #995)

lost to My Life as a Dog (#998 → #957)