The Lady Vanishes

Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick square up for Paul Feig’s twisty comedy thriller, A SIMPLE FAVOUR, about two friends locked in a deadly game of one-upmanship. Total Film steps in to the ring to meet Feig and his two tussling heavyweights.

- James Mottram

April, 2018. In Caesars Palace, the iconic Las Vegas hotel and setting for some classic boxing matches in its time, two of Hollywood’s finest are holding court. In the red corner, the petite Oscar-nominated star of Up In The Air, Anna Kendrick. In the blue, Blake Lively, the former Gossip Girl and better half to Deadpool’s Ryan Reynolds.

Stationed in separate rooms in the Augustus Tower, Kendrick is dressed in a white bathrobe (the air conditioning is cold, she reasons), looking like she’s about to step into the ring. Lively, meanwhile, is nursing a hand injury. “You should see the other guy!” she quips (she actually got hurt on the set of upcoming spy thriller, The Rhythm Section).

Were it not for the fact that the barefoot Lively has her pink heels on the table and Kendrick invites Total Film to “get snugly” on the sofa, you could practically hear the Rocky fanfare playing. These two titans are in town for Paul Feig’s A Simple Favour, a comic murdermystery tale that packs more punch than most of the boxers who have ever graced this hallowed venue.

Based on the novel by Darcey Bell, it follows two unlikely female friends, both mothers, with more skeletons in their closets than a haunted house. When the film opens, Kendrick’s “mommy vlogger” Stephanie announces on her latest post that the glamorous Emily (Lively), a fashion PR who works for flamboyant designer Dennis Nylon, has disappeared.