Paul Feig Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Another Simple Favor,’ starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Andrew Rannells, Elizabeth Perkins, Michele Morrone, Alex Newell, Elena Sofia Ricci, Henry Golding and Allison Janney

April 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in “Another Simple Favor” (Photo by Lorenzo Sisti/Amazon Content Services)

Directed by Paul Feig

Some language in Italian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place on Italy’s Capri island and briefly in the United States, the comedy/drama “Another Simple Favor” (a sequel to “A Simple Favor”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A lifestyle vlogger/author, who is invited to the wedding of a homicidal friend-turned-enemy, gets involved in another murder mystery case during the wedding celebration.

Culture Audience: “Another Simple Favor” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners; the book and movie “A Simple Favor”; and sarcastic dramedies about insecure and image-conscious people.

Cast members of “Another Simple Favor.” Pictured in front: Blake Lively and Michele Morrone. Pictured in back: Alex Newell and Anna Kendrick. (Photo by Lorenzo Sisti/Amazon Content Services)

“Another Simple Favor” doesn’t have the original zest of “A Simple Favor,” but it’s still an enjoyable watch for the performances and to see how the characters deal with the inevitable murder mystery. The movie crams in too many plot twists near the end. Leading up to these turns in the story, there’s enough snappy banter and intriguing “whodunit” sleuthing to keep most fans of these types of movies interested in seeing what will happen next.

Directed by Paul Feig and written by Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis, “Another Simple Favor” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. “Another Simple Favor” is a sequel to 2018’s “A Simple Favor,” which was directed by Feig and written by Sharzer, with the adapted screenplay based on Darcey Bell’s 2017 novel of the same name. Is it necessary to know what happened in “A Simple Favor” to watch “Another Simple Favor”? No, but it definitely helps because “Another Simple Favor” reveals many of the plot twists that happened in “A Simple Favor.”

In “A Simple Favor” (which took place in an unnamed U.S. city), the two friends-turned-enemies at the center of the story are neurotic and talkative Stephanie Smothers (played by Anna Kendrick) and smug and manipulative Emily Nelson (played by Blake Lively), who’ve been in a battle to outwit each other, ever since [spoiler alert] Emily faked her own murder. Emily faked the murder by staging Emily’s “disappearance,” then killing her estranged identical twin sister Faith McLanden (also played by Lively) by drowning her in a lake, and then going into hiding, knowing that when Faith’s body would be found, people would assume that the body was Emily’s. Emily tried to frame Emily’s husband Sean Townsend (played by Henry Golding) for the crime.

In “A Simple Favor,” Stephanie (a widowed mother) was a domestic lifestyle vlogger, while Emily worked in public relations at a fashion company. Emily and Sean have a bratty son named Nicholas “Nicky” Townsend-Nelson (played by Ian Ho), who was about 5 years old during the events that took place in “A Simple Favor.” Stephanie’s son Miles Smothers (played by Joshua Satine), who is about the same age as Nicky, became best friends with Nicky because they’re school classmates. Stephanie and Emily met because of the friendship between Miles and Nicky.

Why did Emily fake her own death? Sean was a one-hit-wonder novelist who became a university professor, but he wasn’t making enough money for Emily. The couple was heavily in debt, due to Emily’s overspending. Emily’s plan was find a way to get the insurance money from her faked murder and then start a new life under a new identity with Nicky.

During the investigation into Emily’s fake death, Stephanie played amateur sleuth and ended up having a romance with Sean. When Emily found out, she set out to ruin Stephanie’s life too. In the end, Emily made a confession that Stephanie secretly livestreamed, and Emily was arrested. The movie’s epilogue mentioned that Emily was convicted of murder and other crimes, and she was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

All of this background information is a lot to know before watching “Another Simple Favor,” which starts with a not-so-great summary of the previous events that took place in “A Simple Favor.” Without knowing all the nuances of how and why the relationship changed between Stephanie and Emily in “A Simple Favor,” it will be harder for viewers to connect with these characters in “Another Simple Favor.”

“Another Simple Favor” picks up five years after the events of “A Simple Favor.” Stephanie’s role in exposing Emily’s crimes has now made Stephanie semi-famous and gotten her millions of followers on social media. Stephanie’s vlog is now named “A Pinch of Murder,” a combination of lifestyle advice and true-crime case solving. Stephanie’s slogan for the vlog is “Your one-stop shop for hot home tips and cold case flips.”

The movie begins by showing Stephanie on the Italian island of Capri while she is doing a livestream to tell her audience that she is under house arrest. She says, “I want to be clear: I did not kill Emily’s husband.” How did Stephanie end up as a murder suspect who’s under house arrest? And why is she in Italy? The movie then unfolds to show to what happened.

Stephanie has written a non-fiction book called “The Faceless Blonde” about her experiences with Emily. However, sales for the book have been disappointing. And Stephanie had to temporarily shut down her vlog because she got public backlash for exploiting her role in Emily’s murder case.

To promote the book, Stephanie does a book reading. In attendance at this book reading are her book agent Vicky (played by Alex Newell); Detective Summerville (played by Bashir Salahuddin), the lead police investigator in Emily’s criminal case; and three of the gossipy neighbors who were in “A Simple Favor”: Darren (played by Andrew Rannells), Sona (played by Aparna Nancherla) and Stacy (played by Kelly McCormack). And there’s someone else who shows up at the book reading: Emily. Of course, people start filming this surprise appearance of Emily on their phones, and the videos goes viral.

Emily makes her grand entrance and explains that she was able to get out of prison because her high-priced attorneys got the conviction reversed by successfully arguing that there was evidence tampering that led to her conviction. Emily, who got divorced from Sean while Emily was in prison, is now engaged to a wealthy Italian man named Dante Versano (played by Michele Morrone), whom she met years ago when they had a fling in Italy when Emily was in her 20s. Dante, who is described as madly in love with Emily, reconnected with Emily while she was in prison, and he paid for Emily’s legal defense that got her out of prison.

Emily has shown up at Stephanie’s book reading to invite her to the lavish wedding, which will take place on Capri and will be a first-class, all-expenses-paid trip for members of the wedding party. Emily wants Stephanie to be her maid of honor. Stephanie says no to the wedding invitation at first.

But with Miles away at summer camp, and Vicky pressuring Stephanie to do something bold to promote the book, Stephanie changes her mind and says yes to the wedding invitation. Stephanie instinctively knows that Emily holds grudges and might have a devious plan in mind for Stephanie. Just in case, Stephanie does a lot of livestreaming and video posting during the trip so that her millions of followers can keep track of what’s happening.

Sean and Nicky are guests at the wedding too. Nicky is still a brat. Sean is now a very angry and bitter person. He spends most of the wedding getting drunk and complaining about how horrible his ex-wife Emily is. There’s also a lot of tension at the wedding for other reasons: Dante’s domineering mother Portia Versano (played by Elena Sofia Ricci) disapproves of Emily and isn’t afraid to show it. Dante is also feuding with Matteo Bartolo (played by Lorenzo de Moor), a longtime business rival who is at the wedding.

As already shown in the movie’s trailers, there’s also tension because Emily’s estranged mother Margaret McLinden (played by Elizabeth Perkins) is an unwelcome guest but has shown up with Margaret’s older sister Linda McLinden (played by Allison Janney), who was invited to the wedding. The role of Margaret was played by Jean Smart in “A Simple Favor.” Margaret’s different physical appearance in “Another Simple Favor” is explained as Margaret having had “work done”—in other words, plastic surgery.

Which of Emily’s husbands will be murdered? This review won’t reveal that information since it was not revealed in the movie’s trailers. However, there are plenty of suspects and motives for people to frame someone for any murder that happen in the story. “Another Simple Favor” is a bit overstuffed with new characters, which might annoy or frustrate some viewers.

By taking the story from a generic suburban American location to the gorgeous locales of Capri, “Another Simple Favor” obviously looks a lot more glamorous than “A Simple Favor.” There are scenes in private jets and five-star resorts. “A Simple Favor” had retro-chic French music for the soundtrack, while “Another Simple Favor” has retro-chic Italian music for the soundtrack. But ultimately, putting “Another Simple Favor” in more luxurious settings is just dressing up a screenplay that’s messier than “A Simple Favor.”

“Another Simple Favor” also continues a few of the provocative storylines that were in “A Simple Favor.” Both movies show that despite Emily’s and Stephanie’s hatred of each other, there’s some underlying sexual tension between Emily and Stephanie. Emily kisses Stephanie in a seductive way in both movies. And people they know describe Emily and Stephanie as being obsessed with each other.

In addition, Stephanie isn’t as squeaky-clean as she appears to be. When Emily and Stephanie started to get to know each other as friends in “A Simple Favor,” Stephanie confessed to Emily that Stephanie knowingly committed incest years before Stephanie was married to her husband Davis (played by Eric Johnson), when Stephanie had sex with a man she had recently found out was her long-lost half-brother Chris (played by Dustin Milligan). Years later, when Stephanie and Davis were married, Davis noticed that Stephanie and Chris seemed too close for comfort, and he confronted Chris about it during a car ride. The car crashed and killed Davis and Chris.

Stephanie thinks that Chris and Davis were probably arguing about her during that car ride, so she feels guilty about both of their deaths. Emily uses that information to taunt and somewhat blackmail Stephanie, including calling Stephanie a “brother fucker.” In “Another Simple Favor,” there’s another incest incident. It’s not played for laughs, but it just seems tacky and unnecessary.

“Another Simple Favor” undoubtedly has a talented cast keeping things afloat when the scenarios get too campy or ridiculous. Kendrick and Lively have many more scenes together in this sequel, which is one of the few things in “Another Simple Favor” that’s better than “A Simple Favor.” Kendrick excels at playing dorky people pleasers, while Lively seems to be having fun hamming it up as self-absorbed Emily. Janney is a scene stealer as strong-willed Linda in “Another Simple Favor,” while other new characters in “Another Simple Favor” are hollow and aren’t nearly as interesting.

“Another Simple Favor” is prettier to look at than “A Simple Favor,” but the overall personality of the movie is more superficial. The end of “Another Simple Favor” hints that the filmmakers want another sequel. The novelty of these characters is now gone, so if the saga between Stephanie and Emily continues, they’re better off being in a situation that’s more credible and lasts longer than a wedding trip.

Prime Video will premiere “Another Simple Favor” on May 1, 2025.

Review: ‘The World According to Allee Willis,’ starring Mark Cuban, Lily Tomlin, Cyndi Lauper, Patti LaBelle, Verdine White, Paul Reubens and Pamela Adlon

December 1, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The World According to Allee Willis”

Directed by Alexis Manya Spraic

Culture Representation: The documentary film “The World According to Allee Willis” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans), who are mostly entertainers, discussing the life and career of songwriter/visual artist Allee Willis, who died from a heart attack in 2019, at the age of 72.

Culture Clash: Willis struggled for years with going public about being a lesbian and had other insecurities because of turmoil in her family and her failure to become a famous singer.

Culture Audience: “The World According to Allee Willis” will appeal primarily to fans of pop music from the 1970s to 1990s and people who are interested in documentaries about underrated artists.

Allee Willis on the set of MTV’s “Just Say Julie” in “The World According to Allee Willis” (Photo courtesy of the Estate of Allee Willis/Magnolia Pictures)

“The World According to Allee Willis” is an engaging tribute to songwriter/visual artist Allee Willis, who wasn’t a household name, but much of her work is world-famous. The documentary has her quirky charm and empathetically details her personal struggles. People who consider themselves to be aficionados about pop music can still find new things to learn from watching this documentary because so much about Willis is unknown to the general public.

Directed by Alexis Manya Spraic, “The World According to Allee Willis” has its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Several people are interviewed for this 97-minute documentary, but it does not feel overstuffed or long-winded. Long before the Internet and reality shows existed, Willis filmed much of her adult life from 1978 onward. A great deal of this personal footage is used in the documentary.

Allee Willis was born as Alta Willis in Detroit on November 10, 1947. She was the youngest of three children born to scrapyard dealer Nathan Willis and elementary school teacher Rose Willis. Allee, who was raised Jewish, was heavily influenced by the music of Motown Records, which had its original headquarters in Detroit.

According to interviews shown in the documentary, Allee said she knew from an early age that she was “different” from most other girls. She didn’t like to wear dresses and was attracted to doing things that were usually considered only appropriate for boys. Her mother accepted Allee for who she was, in contrast to Allee’s father.

According to Allee, she always had a difficult relationship with her father, who expected her to be more “ladylike.” In an archival interview, Allee says her father only wanted her to get married. And if she had a career goals, he only wanted her to become a teacher. “I was an outrageous tomboy,” Allee comments.

As she got older and became a teenager, the conflicts between Allee and Nathan increased. They would argue about what radio stations she enjoyed listening to, which were usually stations that played R&B music. Allee said she would often find comfort by going to Motown headquarters and hanging around outside the building when she didn’t want to be at her house, just so she could listen to the music coming out of the Motown building.

The Willis family turmoil went from bad to worse for Allee after her mother died when Allee was 15 years old. Within a year, her father remarried. Allee’s stepmother had daughters who were more feminine than Allee. According to Allee, her father turned his attentions to his new family, and she became an outcast.

When Allee’s mother died, Allee’s older siblings—brother Kent and sister Marlen, who are both interviewed in the documentary—had already moved out of the family home. Marlen (whose married surname is Frost) comments in the documentary: “My mother was my sister’s protector. When she died, that protection was gone.”

The documentary makes it clear that a great deal of the friction between Allee and her father Nathan had to do Nathan being a racist who disliked that Allee had a passion for music made by African American artists. Allee tells a story in the documentary about a note that her father wrote to her before she left home to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the note, he warned her: “Stay away from black culture.”

Far from taking that racist advice, Allee became involved in civil rights activism when she was in college. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she moved to New York City and worked as a copywriter for Columbia Records, while actually wanting to be a songwriter at a time when songwriting was still very much a male-dominated field. Through her connections at Columbia Records, she got a record deal with Columbia’s sister label Epic Records, which released her first and only album as a solo artist—1974’s “Childstar.”

“Childstar” got good reviews, but it was a sales flop. Many of the people who reviewed Allee’s performances at the time made sexist remarks about her androgynous and unconventional performance style, even though male artists at the time such as David Bowie, Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls were getting praised by critics for being androgynous and unconventional. In archival footage, Allee also talks about how interviewers sometimes mistook her for a man because of her deep voice.

Allee was dropped from Epic after “Childstar” bombed. She decided to start over as a songwriter by relocating from New York City to Los Angeles. And it was in Los Angeles that her luck and her career changed.

Allee was introduced to Earth, Wind & Fire lead singer/songwriter Maurice White by A&R executive Carole Childs, who is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. Maurice White died of Parkinson’s disease in 2016, at the age of 74. However, Maurice’s younger brother Verdine White, who is Earth, Wind & Fire’s bass player, is interviewed in the documentary.

Maurice White and Allee had an instant connection and ended up co-writing (with Al McKay) one of Earth, Wind & Fire’s most beloved songs: the 1978 smash hit “September.” Allee would go on to co-write two more Earth, Wind & Fire songs: “Boogie Wonderland” and “In the Stone,” both released in 1979. The hits set her on a path to becoming an in-demand songwriter.

Ruth Pointer of the Pointer Sisters (whose Grammy-winning 1984 hit “Neutron Dance” was co-written by Allee) says in the documentary that Maurice White told her that he felt Allee was “put on this earth to be a communicator.” “Neutron Dance” was one of the songs on the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack, which also featured another song co-written by Allee: Patti LaBelle’s “Stir It Up.” LaBelle is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. Allee was among of the songwriters who won a Grammy Award (her first Grammy) for the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack, which took the prize for Best Soundtrack Album Background Score from a Motion Picture or Television.

“The World According to Allee Willis” actually begins by telling a true story about how “Neutron Dance” briefly caused controversy in Russia because the Russian government misinterpreted the song as encouraging people to rebel by using neutron weapons. For a while, Allee was described in Russian media as “the most dangerous woman in America.” The documentary has archival footage of Allee being interviewed about this controversy and laughing about it.

Allee was a prolific songwriter who claims to have written hundreds of songs per year, many of which were not recorded by artists. The list of hit songs she’s co-written is long, but among her other best-known hits are the Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There for You,” the Emmy-nominated theme song from the 1994 to 2004 sitcom “Friends”; the Pet Shop Boys’ “What Have I Done to Deserve This” (featuring Dusty Springfield), released in 1987; and Maxine Nightingale’s “Lead Me On,” released in 1979. Allee also co-wrote the Tony-nominated songs for the stage musical “The Color Purple,” which was made into a 2023 movie.

The documentary dutifully notes Allee’s success as a songwriter, but the movie is much more interesting when it takes a look at her personal life. Allee had a uniquely eccentric style that was reflected in her choice of friends, her fashion wardrobe, how she decorated her house, and how she liked to entertain. She loved to collect kitschy art, which has been kept preserved by her custodian/archivist Sean Welch, who gives a tour of Allee’s pink house (designed by William Kessler) where things have been left intact. One of her quirks was that she liked to collect saddles shoes and had hundreds of pairs of these shoes.

Not content to rest on her songwriting laurels, Allee also became a prolific visual artist who made paintings, sculptures and set designs. She was also successful in visual arts, with her artistic style best described as maximalist and flashy. Her art always conveyed that she seemed to be a kid at heart, bursting with a lot of creative and vibrant energy that was very offbeat but uniquely her own.

Still, Allee had lingering frustrations over two areas of entertainment that she wasn’t fully able to break into as an artist: First was her short-lived career as a recording/performing artist. She also battled sexism in her attempts to become a successful music producer, which is an area of the music industry that is still overwhelmingly dominated by men.

“The World According to Allee Wills” has numerous friends and colleagues of Allee talking about her generous and welcoming personality and her parties where people were encouraged to be as pleasantly weird as they wanted to be. One of her closest friends who’s interviewed in the documentary is actor Paul Reubens, who died at age 70 of respiratory failure in 2023, after living with lung cancer for several years. Reubens was best known for creating the Pee-Wee Herman character for children’s television.

Other friends and colleagues interviewed in the documentary include actress/comedian Lily Tomlin; singer/songwriter Cyndi Lauper; entrepreneur Mark Cuban; writer/director/producer Paul Feig; writer/director/producer Michael Patrick King; musician/former Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, who composed the music for this documentary; actress Lesley Ann Warren; writer/comedian Bruce Vilanch; singer/songwriter Brenda Russell; Pet Shop Boys singer/songwriter Neil Tennant; producer/songwriter Andrae Alexander; comedian/actress Lunell; writer/director Stan Zimmerman; director Jeff Stein; musician Stephen Bray; actor Tim Bagley; humorist/historian Charles Phoenix; singer/songwriter Siedah Garrett; and actress/writer Pamela Adlon, who was Allee’s art assistant when Adlon was in her late teens; and actress/comedian Julie Brown, whose 1980s MTV series “Just Say Julie” had a production set designed by Allee.

Although she had plenty of success and friends in the entertainment business, the documentary doesn’t gloss over that Allee was deeply hurt by her fractured relationship with her father. She remained estranged from her father for years. On the rare occasions that she and family reunions with her father, their conversations remained tense. The documentary includes footage of one such family reunion, where Nathan Willis seems to have a condescending attitude toward Allee, who is clearly bothered by it, but she’s trying not to let her feelings show too much on camera.

Allee was afraid to tell her father and many other people about being a lesbian. At times, she would outright deny her true sexuality because—according to friends in the documentary—she was fearful that it would ruin her career at a time when LGBTQ people weren’t as accepted in the entertainment industry as they are now. Singer/songwriter Lauren Wood, who dated Allee in the early 1980s, says that Allee abruptly ended their relationship out of fear of being “outed” as a lesbian.

Adlon comments, “Allee was an open book, but everyone has a private side.” Cuban, who worked with Allee on Internet ventures in the early years of social media, says about how Allee handled her public image and what she chose to film about her life: “Her life was a movie, and she was always rewriting the script.”

According to what people say in the documentary, Allee didn’t feel completely comfortable about coming out as a lesbian until she became involved with animator/producer Prudence Fenton, who was her partner from 1992 until Allee’s death. Fenton is interviewed in the documentary but she doesn’t get as much screen time as you might expect for someone who was Allee’s partner for 27 years.

“The World According to Allee Willis” is not a pity party for Allee’s problems. Rather, it’s an inspirational look at how someone who had a lot of obstacles and insecurities was able to turn a lot of her pain into bringing joy to other people. It’s a story of resilience and how she found a level of self-acceptance that came with a lot of hard-fought battles. Most of all, “The World According to Allee Willis” stands as great testament for celebrating people for who they are and not what other people expect them to be.

Magnolia Pictures released “The World According to Allee Willis” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on November 15, 2024.