On paper, there are plenty of reasons to make a follow-up to A Simple Favor, Paul Feig’s 2018 comic mystery film starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively as two delusive, scheming suburban moms. Though it gestured at being a serious thriller – a sort of Gone Girl for cable – the film, based on the 2017 novel by Darcey Bell, ultimately devolved into ridiculousness, untethered from logic yet with plenty of road for more twists. Lively’s Emily Nelson, an archly manipulative psychopath straight out of a Justin Baldoni lawsuit, remains her best work since Gossip Girl. And most pertinent to Amazon MGM studios, the film found post-theatrical success on streaming, becoming a modern camp classic during the pandemic.
But Feig, by his own admission at the SXSW film festival on Friday evening, is wary of sequels, and for good reason – rarely does lightning strike twice, especially in suburban Connecticut. A Simple Favor ended in settled-enough fashion, with (spoiler alert) Emily in prison for the murder of her secret identical twin sister and attempted murder of her husband, with Kendrick’s Stephanie, a successful mommy vlogger, and their hapless mutual ex Sean (Henry Golding) living in peace in San Diego.
