A Simple Favor (2018)

I remember when the trailer first came out. My immediate reaction was "Wow Henry Golding is in a second Hollywood movie already? And he's married to Blake Lively? That's a pretty big deal." But my second reaction was that it looks like Gone Girl. Then I scrolled down to the Youtube comments and they were saying "Don't be deceived, it's nothing like Gone Girl." Lo and behold, now that I've seen the movie, it is very much like Gone Girl. My biggest problem with the movie is that the motivations are unclear. There are no motivations except craziness. Gone Girl has more motivation than that but the underlying drive is just her being crazy. I'm sort of confused and it bothers me a little. In retrospect, it's sort of weird that Anna Kendrick is the protagonist because she is totally external to the central plot. She actually plays the sleuth. I was sort of mislead into thinking she had more to do with the motive or maybe she was a scapegoat, but this has nothing to do with her.

It's a dark comedy, comedic in that it's absurd. I did actually laugh out loud at the absurdity, which does at times come off as fun because it takes itself pretty seriously. Even the music is funny. The glamor of suburban Connecticut is represented by French music, while her trip to New Yorker is accented by Latin music. Speaking of glamor, Blake Lively is gorgeous. The costumes on her are absolutely stunning. Oscar for the costume designer.