Film - A Simple Favor

#CanYouKeepASecretFrom the trailer, you’d know that vlogger Stephanie is looking for her friend who goes missing after asking for a simple favour; to pick up her kid from school. Emily disappears while her husband is abroad visiting his sick mother leaving Stephanie to look after their son overnight.In fact, they have been friends mere weeks, Stephanie, a young, widowed stay-at-home mum, is fascinated by the glamorous, aloof, uncouth, seemingly super-successful, wealthy mum who occasionally turns up for work as a PR head for a well known brand. She’s the type to bark instructions down the phone, so, all together, not really good friend material, which is why she doesn’t have any and instead takes advantage of Stephanie’s deluded attention.The film is genre defiant covering everything from mystery to thriller to comedy. When you’ve known someone for a few weeks, you may be concerned but I’m not sure if anyone of us would take long drives to uncover childhood secrets, make friends with her mum and practically move in with the grieving husband, Sean, (the kid never seemed to notice his mum gone) would you? Which says far from being deluded, Stephanie is smart and bored - what an intriguing combination.So, if you let all sense of realism leave you when you sink into your cinema seat then you won’t notice the glaring errors like how does anyone hire a car without a credit card and cliques like the police suspecting the husband first and Sean quickly moving on to the next available girl in Stephanie after Emily’s disappearance.Rather than the thriller aspect, what makes this film is all the characters’ backgrounds. You cannot actually root for anyone. Even Sean, who you’d first assume to be gold digger has a proper job. They could all be suspects, even the judgemental school run parents - it must be exhausting to keep finding things wrong in people! Although refreshingly, the most gossipy parent in the group is a man. Everyone has a past and some secrets, but who has the most shocking ones?A Simple Favor comprises of twist after twist until we’ve exhausted every single avenue. Take in a coffee with you.7/10