Recensioni de* critic*

It came intoxicatingly close to being an erotic thriller but alas, it didn't quite hit the mark. The film flitted frustratingly between tones, and started running out of steam as twists upon twists piled up.

Screenwriter Jessica Sharzer, adapting a novel by Darcey Bell, toys with the idea that Kendrick’s fascination with Lively stems from a repressed desire to be bad, but she doesn’t develop this psychological insight to any meaningful end; likewise, Kendrick and director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) quash the story’s darker implications by insisting on making the heroine likable at every turn.

It's insightful about the head games women can play with each other, but it doesn't burden itself with trying to be "meaningful." It's not trying to "say something" about "how we live now" or anything like that. What a relief to watch a film unafraid of letting its hair down.

The performances by Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in the mystery-comedy “A Simple Favor” are so invigorating, so generous with pointed inflections and snappy gestures, that they fill the movie’s good-humored, amply plotted emptiness.

Sly and sweet with an acid finish, “A Simple Favor” is a female-friendship comedy with neo-noir ambitions.