So deliciously dumb that it’s fun!

Movies are best done like blind dates Yoursquove no clue whatrsquos on offer The flip side is after seeing it you could wish you were blind yourself The good part is you may fall for something so totally not your sceneWhich was my scene sitting through Paul Fiegrsquos Anna Kendrick Blake Lively starrer Another Simple Favor that drops on Amazon Prime Video May 1The murdermystery comedy is a sequel of A Simple Favor 2018 based on Darcey Bellrsquos novel of the same name alrightBut I entered the preview theatre knowing nothing about it Besides an Italian song sampled from its finely cut trailer The song in the film is shot like mainstream Bollywoodmdashlusciously across the picturesque blue expanse of Tyrrhenian Sea in Capri ItalyThen again why do I or most Indians in fact recognise this killer Italian track LrsquoItaliano by Toto CutugnoWell itrsquos the song that got lifted as lsquoNasha yeh pyar ka nasha hairsquo in the Aamir Khan Manisha Koirala starrer Mann 1999 that itself was inspired by the Hollywood classic An Affair to Remember 1957This is as mildly embarrassing as the other AamirManisha unofficial remake of Kramer vs Kramer 1990 Akele Hum Akele Tum 1995 where the title track was goddammed ripped off from The Godfather themeThe Godfather gets referenced in Another Simple Favor Because the female lead Emily Blake Lively is set to marry a ldquobudget Mafiosirdquo in ItalyAnd as her maid of honour Stephanie Anna Kendrick puts it ldquoIf yoursquove seen The Godfather you know this didnrsquot work out too well for Diane KeatonrdquoEmily Stephanie bride maid of honour are meant to be best friends Or they were because their kids go to the same school But theyrsquore really not The latter sent the former to jail in this filmrsquos prequel over a murder charge and even wrote a book about itEmilyrsquos emerged from prison since dragging Stephanie to her wedding party in Caprimdashpromising some shit will go down for sureThat said what kinda murder mystery is centred on two chiller white moms from suburban America with a Malaysiandescent Henry Golding hanging in the periphery as the husband Golding became the global Shah Rukh Khanlike chick magnet post Crazy Rich Asians 2018 He starred in A Simple Favor around the same timeIt takes a totally unabashed romantic film to get you that inexplicable female following sometimes lasting forever The Notebook did that for Ryan Gosling DDLJ did it for SRKAs with Crazy Rich Asians for Golding Only that hersquos pretty much a lsquosideyrsquo in Another Simple Favor that like its prequel is an altogether ditsy comedymdashabout two women friends making girlie talk over martini as if in Sex and the Citymdashwhere deaths seem like plot deviationsTo be fair I went over for Another Simple Favor wholly blind for the Gossip Girl alum Blake Lively Her last outing Justin Baldonirsquos It Ends with Us 2024 was a rare deeply intense drama about domestic violence that rightly cracked it at the boxoffice 325 million on a 25 million budgetThis at a time when general perception is the audiences only watch blastfests and spectacles in cinemasIt Ends with Us of course didnrsquot end well for Lively married to superstar Ryan Reynolds What with her filing a sexual harassment case against her costar and director Baldoni Who in turn filed a countersuit claiming damages for defamation Itrsquos still playing out in the pressThe complicated LivelyBaldoni case remains an important one for how complex the idea of privilege can be obvious notions of feminism apartIrsquom sure yoursquove been following it on the social media since it blew up taking sides alongside as well The case goes to trial in 2026Irsquod rather wait for a deepdive documentarymdashlike Emma Cooperrsquos Depp v Heard Netflix similarly on the Johnny Depp Amber Heard marital madnessmdashto get a real lowdown on the LivelyBaldoni brouhahaAs it is therersquos rumours floating around on how Lively and her Another Simple Favor costar Anna Kendrick had issues on sets in the backdrop of Livelyrsquos fallingout with her best friend Taylor Swift who sided with Baloni on the defamation caseSurely all of this subconsciously adds to the lightweight comedy of murders in Another Simple Favor where Lively plays a devious nutItrsquos hard not to be taken in by her onscreen poisecharm though Which contrasts so naturally with Kendrickrsquos easygoing excitable silver tongue she plays an online ldquovloggerrdquo who are probably called influencers nowSurely their filmrsquos first part wouldrsquove done well for the sequel to go off from smalltown Connecticut into widescreen islandic ItalyWhat remains are random movie references from Diabolique 1996 to Kate Winsletrsquos underwater breathing exercise for Avatar The Way of Water or if Kate actually killed Jack Leonardo DiCaprio in TitanicI watched the prequel after the sequelmdashdrowning in the guilty pleasure of screenwriters fishing out a triple role after a double roleItrsquos been a while since we found and enjoyed such delicious dumbness in films that were often in Hindi Now itrsquos Hollywood we turn to thee Love it and so be itMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paperatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params