.

I’m not really a fan of director Paul Feig. I don’t mean as a person; he always comes across well in interviews, he clearly knows this medium that I love and he wears really nice suits. His films are not very good though, not in my opinion. The one real exception to this is 2018’s A Simple Favour.

Starting out with this sequel I thought he’d given us another winner. Anna Kendrick gives off great charisma and the script that seems to have everyone randomly verbalising their every inner thought, no matter what this confesses to those they are talking to, is amusing. The early frenemy dynamic between Kendrick’s Stephanie and Blake Lively’s Emily, a woman who in the previous movie tried to kill her, is compelling too. 

Soon though the cracks start to show and Feig falls back on some of his regular habits. The jokes become forced, the performances unconvincing (Elizabeth Perkins in particular does not seem to know what she is doing here) and the story rocky and underdeveloped. The first movie was adapted from a book and it was working from strong source material that presumably allowed Feig to keep things tight. This follow up tries to maintain the sophistication but just can’t. The original genuinely had earned pretensions to be a contemporary Hitchcock but this one just about scrapes pretensions to be Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston’s Murder Mystery.

There is still fun to be had here but it really isn’t as good as it could or should have been. The locations and outfits are amazing and the fun the cast are having is largely infectious. Even at two hours it does slightly overstay its welcome but it’s still worth going on Amazon Prime and inviting these characters back into your home.

Simple perhaps, undemanding yes, and watching it you’d definitely be doing Feig a favour.