A Simple Favor

Paul Feig has had a strange career.  After starting out as an actor, he moved behind the camera.  He got his big break cocreating "Freaks and Geeks" with Judd Apatow.  The show was a very grounded drama examining the pitfalls of high school and aging.  He then made "I Am David," a film about a boy escaping from a concentration camp.  Heavy stuff.

Since then, though, he's mostly spent his time making ever-more ridiculous comedies such as "The Heat" and "Spy."  It's telling that when he and Apatow took over at the helm of "Bridesmaids," they made a small indie film much broader, most infamously by inserting an extended diarrhea-and-vomit sequence.

Feig's latest, "A Simple Favor," would seem to be a turn toward more serious fare.  There's infidelity, murder, and a mysterious disappearance.  Yet in a way, this film is as ridiculous as anything Feig has directed.  It offers up some scenic views before eventually driving into Crazytown.

Anna Kendrick stars as Stephanie Smothers, a seemingly prudish stay-at-home mom whose life is changed when she meets fellow mom Emily, yet another uber-chic role for Blake Lively.  Emily shows off a depressive personality and hides a lot more.  One day, Emily asks Stephanie to pick her son up from school.  Then she doesn't come home.

This is all fun and games for a while, as Stephanie tries to track down Emily.  But even after she cracks that mystery, the film is still far from its endgame.  It piles on the twists until it collapses in on its own pretzel logic.  Eventually, keeping straight which characters are allied with one another becomes impossible.  Adding to the chaos, the script throws in plenty of broad comedy, too, along with some feints at observations on motherhood and female friendship that never really say anything.

It's a shame, because Kendrick nails every pose this ridiculous movie puts her into.  "A Simple Favor" is a movie that wants to give everything to everyone: Comedy!  Drama!  Suspense!  Surprise!  Social commentary!  But as has often been remarked this decade, one can't have it all.