Paul Feig’s A Simple Favour was a sleeper hit, blending competitive motherhood, social media addiction and wild conspiratorial nonsense to create an effective and surprising murder mystery. With jokes. This sequel leans into the complicated plotting, the comedy and the murder, but loses the clever character work that made the first so compelling. So, while the result is still wildly entertaining and as breezy as the island of Capri where it is set, it’s more conventional than its predecessor and considerably more predictable.
Anna Kendrick has a little less to do this time as mommy-blogger/detective Stephanie, who is trying to launch a book about her previous experiences with her frenemy, Blake Lively’s con-artist/murderess Emily. When this nemesis reappears, sprung from prison by a rich new fiancé (Michele Morrone’s brooding Dante) and headed to her wedding on Capri, she demands Stephanie’s presence as maid of honour. It’s surely some plot to get revenge, but with a threat to sue her book into oblivion, Stephanie feels obliged – and intrigued – to go. Then there’s a murder, and Stephanie becomes a suspect, and the need to figure out what, exactly, Emily is doing becomes urgent.
The previous film’s plot got extremely silly, but had a few twists so bizarre that no-one could have seen them coming. This time, several key reveals are telegraphed way in advance and there’s much less of a sense of Stephanie-as-detective; she’s the patsy for much of the running time. Happily, Feig is entirely aware that the film is ridiculous and just runs with it, decamping to glamorous Capri and staging all the drama at the world’s most over-the-top wedding. It looks incredible, and Lively in particular has great fun swanning around suspiciously in ever-more outrageous couture. It feels like a holiday, and a pretty fun one at that, but it could have used a few wilder turns just to keep us – like its stilettoed leading ladies – constantly on our toes.
