Perfectly cast by the director of Spy and Bridesmaids, A Simple Plan is a wonderful parody of the Gone Girl genre.
A Simple Favor (Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding) – If you set out to produce a parody of Gone Girl, you would create A Simple Favor. What Mel Brooks did to Vertigo in High Anxiety and what Kennan Ivory Wayans did to Shaft in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is what Director Paul Feig does to Gone Girl in A Simple Plan.
Funny, suspenseful, and a little naughty, A Simple Plan is first and foremost funny. After that, it is a thriller with a little hint of Big Little Lies, Bandits, and Spy. I picked those references purposefully because “Lies’” female-driven cast led by Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman plays like Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively here. Both sagas are set in a tony town with a seemingly perfect mother (Witherspoon/Kendrick) and a career-driven, self-confident schemer. The Bandits’ reference is largely aimed at the stunning physical and psychological similarities between Lively and Cate Blanchett. Cocky, brash, lanky and desperately insecure, the two characters seem larger-than-life. Spy is a Paul Feig comedy with brilliant performances by Melissa McCarthy and Rose Byrne. Feig created a clever 007 yarn for jokes while seemingly putting his heroine and her foil in desperate trouble. A Simple Favor is just like that. It is mostly a comedy but it feels like it is devolving into danger.
Kendrick plays Stephanie, a young mother who is just a little too perfect to the point of being annoying. Lively’s Emily is the wisecracking, foul-mouthed anti-mother who befriends Stephanie like a vulture circling her prey. Stephanie desperately wants to be liked; Emily doesn’t give a damn. Before long, Kendrick thinks she has a best friend and Lively has a nanny for her cute but foul-mouthed son.
Emily’s husband, Sean (Henry Golding of Crazy Rich Asians), is a college professor who once wrote an acclaimed novel but whose writing career is over. Emily is a PR executive for a design company with a narcissistic owner. Kendrick is a widow whose husband and half-brother were both killed in the same car accident. Now, she vlogs (that’s video blog for those of you who didn’t know).
But everything is not as it seems, of course.
There are numerous plot twists, all of which seem ridiculous until you remember that IT’S A PARODY! There is a murder – or is there? There is a cadre of wacky “moms” at the school where Emily’s and Stephanie’s kids go. There’s a cop who is more than a little curious about what is going on between Sean, Emily and Stephanie. And there are loads of wisecracks by both of the female stars.
Kendrick and Lively look like they had a blast doing the film. Golding is largely eye candy. And that is all OK because Feig has crafted a first-rate comedy thriller with plenty of laughs and a touch of intrigue perfect for a Saturday afternoon.