Original-Cin by Kim Hughes

Feig has done a superb job of building a compelling story from angular bits that shouldn’t fit together but do while making pointed commentary on everything from gender roles to social media.

Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker

Just strap in, because A Simple Favor's plot isn't just twisty: It's so labyrinthine that you expect a minotaur to pop up.

Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper

Thanks to the stylish direction by Paul Feig, a whip-smart screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (adapting Darcey Bells’ novel) and performances that pop from the screen, A Simple Favor is a sharp-edged delight.

IGN by William Bibbiani

A Simple Favor is a sharply dressed comedy-thriller, and the screenplay is even sharper. Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively dominate the screen in two of their best and funniest roles, and director Paul Feig is in rare form, using spry humor to make this subversive and creepy thriller more unusual and unpredictable.

Entertainment Weekly

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.

Entertainment Weekly

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.

Consequence by Allison Shoemaker

If Double Indemnity were a hangout movie, this would be its sequel. It’s delicious.

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.

Total Film by Matt Maytum

Paul Feig makes a slight gear change for a slick thriller that’s best enjoyed with a martini in hand.

Film Threat by Brian Thompson

Chic, sexy, and just the right amount of sleazy, A Simple Favor is a stunning thrill ride, a viciously engrossing experience that has become so rare in studio filmmaking.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Emily Yoshida

With its martini-swilling leads and swingy French pop soundtrack, A Simple Favor seems to yearn for a bygone era of nail-biter, but rather than wallow in pastiche, it comes up with something truly contemporary feeling.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

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.

Variety by Amy Nicholson

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.

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.

IndieWire by Kate Erbland

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.

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.

TheWrap by Robert Abele

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.

Screen Daily 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.

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.