A Simple Favor

Stephanie is a single mother with a parenting vlog who befriends Emily, a secretive upper-class woman who has a child at the same elementary school. When Emily goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to investigate. (IMDb)

Didn't really know that this was adapted from someone's debut novel (which if you've read the crowdsourced Goodreads reviews, made it sound like the worst thing they've ever read or wasted their time on), which may or may not be true. Which kinda explains the creative liberties they've done to the screenplay instead. 

• Is anyone else kind of envious of Blake Lively's character's wardrobe in this movie? Her last look where she's just wearing the blazer with nothing underneath (ok, the loose bow tie to cover the cleavage; it's in one of the movie posters/publicity images) was really bold. Even the Spice Girls wore bras under those blazers back in the day.
• Besides the evil component, Blake Lively doesn't seem like she has to stretch too far to play her character - she just seem to ooze cool mum out of her pores not just in this movie, but  also in real life. 
• Also, don't get me started on the red soled shoes... are all those really Louboutins? 
• Rupert Friend as Emily's boss Dennis Nylon is freaking hilarious. I'm not entirely sure if he's a pastiche of anyone in the fashion industry, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was. And him being scared of his own PR director is just stupid funny. 
• The husband character just comes off as a total idiot, which I guess is the point since he's not the lead. At least they found a way to explain Henry Golding's accent in this movie and that he doesn't have to play an American in this movie.

The movie is okay as a one-off, non-sequel, non-prequel, non-franchise movie. If you're looking to watch something that's not a sequel, prequel or non-franchise movie, it's not a terrible way to kill a couple of hours. It might be rated 18 in Malaysia, but they already cut the raunchy stuff out, so might as well be like PG13 or something.