In its only twist, Another Simple Favor asks absolutely nothing from you

Another Simple Favor. // Courtesy Amazon

Hi. It’s Friday, you’ve got a weekend ahead, I’ve got a weekend ahead—we can cut this short.

Paul Feig, as a film director, is always a roll of the dice. When he hits, he only hits home runs. When he whiffs, he whiffs so spectacularly that it’ll make your head spin. For me, A Simple Favor was like a grand slam home run. That film cut out its own little slice of neo-noir that was equal parts sincere Diabolique sexual thriller versus characters shouting, “Are you trying to Diabolique me?” It was a clever puzzle box, shot and edited near perfectly, acted in a way that pushed both stars beyond their limits, and it remains (alongside his film Spy, of all things) one of those Feig films that I only enjoy more on each re-watch.

Another Simple Favor is not that. I would believe you if you told me that neither Feig nor anyone else showed up on set to direct this. It is dull, lifeless, predictable, and utterly nothing. Again, this comes from someone who loved the first film so much that he spent the last few years actively hunting news and updates on the sequel. But this isn’t a ‘disappointment’ that stems from setting too high expectations—I assure you that I knew what a Blake Lively/Anna Kendrick thriller sequel would play like in 2025. The bar was not very high here, and yet…

To summarize the plot feels unneeded, as most of the characters in this tale of wacky woe spend their precious few moments on screen recapping the last film, narrating the actions that they are currently performing as if reading the script’s action lines aloud, or hoping that yelling “Suck my dick!” at increasing volumes will be enough to entertain you.

But this doesn’t matter, because you will not watch this in a theater. You are going to watch it on streaming (where it is available today) and not watch it, so much as let it play in the background while you look at your phone. And in that way, Another Simple Favor is perfect. The perfect streaming nothing IP. There is no visual element worth looking up from a pick-three game to gaze upon. There is no performance that will make the lifeless, artificial intelligence-adjacent dialogue more engaging. There are no choices, and in that way, there is nothing to really shake a fist toward.

Go girls, give us nothing.