83
The film is full of panache, from its sexy French score to its glistening gin martinis, and it weaponizes style, using it to keep audiences off balance as the mystery unfolds.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The film feels a lot like the Serge Gainsbourg number that Stephanie dances to in the kitchen: jazzy, a little sleazy, and worth a cult following.
67
Film Journal International by David Noh
Kendrick’s interplay with Lively’s big, alluringly langurous temptress is deliciously diverting, but the script could have used some judicious editing; a surfeit of credibility-straining, overly antic plot developments crowd the last third of the film, which until then had an intriguingly languid pace.
50
The Hollywood Reporter by Jon Frosch
A twisted tale of toxic female friendship, the film offers its share of pleasures: eye candy in human, sartorial and real-estate form, as well as the unmistakable flair of a director and performers who know their way around a piece of pop entertainment. But the result leaves you scratching your head.
58
Feig goes for the spaghetti method of storytelling: Throw a whole bunch of stuff at the wall and something has got to stick. Only some does, but the good stuff — the really campy, trashy, nutty stuff — is the kind of thing popcorn cinema hasn’t so happily embraced in years.
80
Paul Feig makes a slight gear change for a slick thriller that’s best enjoyed with a martini in hand.
80
Arizona Republic by Randy Cordova
For all its ludicrous plot twists and a mystery that falls too conveniently into place, A Simple Favor is just fun. It's light and frothy.
43
Unlike “Spy,” which took great pains to make its cloak-and-dagger shenanigans as exciting, and thematically meaningful, as the raucous comedy around it, A Simple Favor is like two different movies, a sophisticated sisterhood lark you want more of, and a ho-hum buried-secrets murder mystery getting in the way of your good time.
75
A Simple Favor is a thriller that ticks likes a Timex, a precision exercise in button-pushing manipulation and a laugh out loud mystery that mocks its own manipulations, giggles at its own far-fetched twists.
40
Screen International by Tim Grierson
A Simple Favor wants it both ways, hoping to be a stylish, twisty, trashy thriller while simultaneously acting superior to the genre’s slinky pleasures. Those conflicting strategies do the film no favours.
With its star-studded cast who knows what they're doing, A Simple Favor is full of twists and turns. The class oozes out of the film, from Blake Lively's outfits to the copious gin martinis, but the climax itself is certainly no classy affair. Its Gone-Girl-esque nature will leave viewers asking "what did I just watch?" but enjoy it all the same.