A Simple Favor recap: Look back at Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick’s dark thriller ahead of Another Simple Favor

With the release of Another Simple Favor on Prime Video just around the corner, it's a good time to reflect on the exciting events of the 2018 dark comedic thriller A Simple Favor, which served as a prequel to the highly anticipated sequel. A story of friendship, betrayal, and unforeseen peril, A Simple Favor is directed by Paul Feig and stars Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick (watch Woman of the Hour), and Henry Golding.

Plot overview of A Simple Favor

A Simple Favor revolves around a mother-daughter friendship that is both flawless and fundamentally flawed. The characters are Emily, a secretive and self-assured public relations director, and Stephanie, a widow and YouTuber who is self-conscious (played by Anna Kendrick). When the women's sons become friends, their lives intersect, and despite their vastly different backgrounds, an unexpected friendship forms between them.

Stephanie, who is always looking to make new friends and volunteer at her kid's school, ends up doing Emily a lot of favours, such as bringing up her son, running errands, and providing emotional support. On the other hand, Emily appears to avoid Stephanie and everyone else. If they ever had a friendship, it was primarily one-sided. But everything changes when Emily vanishes without a trace and the reasons behind it remain a mystery.

Shocking discovery behind Emily's vanishing

The film's unexpected turn occurs when Emily mysteriously disappears. After her first shock wears off, Stephanie gets fixated on locating her companion and stumbles onto a sinister network of hidden truths. Even Emily's husband, Sean (Henry Golding), learns the truth about her identity and background. Stephanie learns that Emily's abduction was orchestrated by someone with much darker intentions as she continues to investigate.

As Stephanie quickly discovers, Emily had committed a horrific act and then pretended to die. She travelled to Michigan in search of her long-lost twin sister Hope, who had been hidden away for a long time (and was also portrayed by Lively). Reunited after years of separation, the two sisters have a terrible past, including an abusive father. Things take a tragic turn when Hope demands payment from Emily.

Emily murders her sister and then stages her own murder to make it appear as though she was the victim, all to keep Hope and her secrets hidden. That is, until Stephanie finds out the truth and starts to put the pieces together, it is the ideal crime.

Stephanie's new role and Emily's fate

Stephanie starts dating Emily's husband, Sean, and gets increasingly entangled in Emily's strange world as the inquiry heats up. Nonetheless, Emily will return, and it will be explosive. Stephanie, who is now famous online, confronts Emily at her house with a gun in a tense and dramatic last showdown.

Surprisingly, Stephanie's decision to shoot Sean turns out to have been orchestrated by the police as part of a sting operation. However, Emily is taken aback by the subsequent events. Pulling out a real gun, she shoots Sean in a desperate attempt to flee. After being hit by a car and then detained by the police, Emily's terror reign comes to an end.

A look into the characters' futures is seen at the end of the film. Now a well-known vlogger, Stephanie runs her cold case business out of a deep desire to find out the truth. Thanks to his resilience in the face of adversity, Sean is now a renowned lecturer and author. At the same time, Emily had a long prison term on her record for killing her father and sister and attempting to murder her husband.

Watch A Simple Favor now and prepare for the sequel

You can now watch A Simple Favor on Prime Video and Lionsgate Play, and you won't want to miss a moment of the surprises, thrills, and surprising twists that made it such a memorable thriller. Whether you're a long-time fan or just getting into thrillers, you really must see this one before the sequel everyone is talking about comes out.

Another Simple Favor will premiere on Prime Video on May 1, 2025. Will the complicated and potentially perilous bond between Stephanie and Emily carry over into the sequel? What surprises lie in store? There is still so much more to come in this hilarious thriller.