Lies. Deceit. They are both ingredients to a juicy mystery made for any type of audience that will get you invested while either reading a book or watching a movie. All great mystery movies keep you invested in the story, characters and the twists and turns along the way. For example, a movie that I hope I can do a GREAT SELECTION for in the future, I did not expect how dark Seven's twist/revelation it became but it contradicts my surprise because the material was dark anyway but it went up another notch. This movie is not as dark but I appreciate that this latest mystery does not take itself seriously and it made my experience watching this movie better and worthwhile because you again you are invested but above all else, entertained.
Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is a single mother who is a "mommy vlogger" for her website. She gives viewers a recap for what is going on as she starts to compose herself and explain to us, the audience, and her viewers what happened. Stephanie is a volunteer for her son, Miles' (Joshua Satine) school, which makes the other parents look bad. Miles is friends with Nicky (Ian Ho). Stephanie meets Nicky's mother, Emily (Blake Lively), while she is picking Nicky up for their playdate, and at the boys' requests, Emily agrees to the playdate and invites Stephanie over for drinks.
Stephanie arrives at Emily's lavish home as she works as a public relations manager at a fashion company. It is revealed that Stephanie is a widow after her husband and brother died in a car accident. They both trade secrets as Stephanie revealed something surprising. Emily is married to one-time author, Sean (Henry Golding), in which they both have a passionate relationship. However, they are close to bankruptcy since he has not written a single word since his first book was published. Later on, Emily calls Stephanie to ask for a simple favor to pick up Nicky from school because of work. Stephanie obliges but after two days, Emily is not available and becomes missing because Sean had to go pick Nicky up.
All I am telling y'all is the set-up of the disappearance because there is a lot to take in from the material and the first 2/3rds of the movie are very good as Stephanie is reeling in from Emily's disappearance and investigating what was behind the disappearance and that was my favorite part of the movie as I liked the journey more as to why she disappeared. I sort of rolled my eyes in one part of the movie in which the story attempts to go into a cliche territory where it involved a potential affair between Stephanie and Sean when they console each other by having sex and then becomes a framing story but it rolls back onto the main story. Yet, what I liked about this movie is that plays against the fanciful and rich lifestyle and becomes something a bit more darkly comedic like the 2014 David Fincher film, Gone Girl, which had the same set-up about a woman disappearing and setting up her murder to potentially frame her husband. The reason is why it is not as great as Gone Girl is because of its payoff and I'll get to that in a moment.
Anna Kendrick delivers a very solid performance, one of her best as she delves deeper into a zone that I've not seen in her career and is out of her comfort zone from playing snarky characters. You have to suspend your disbelief in a couple of areas in which there were moments that I found questionable. I have never favored Lively as a particularly great actress especially in movies, even though she was fine in the all-right Age of Adaline, this is unquestionably her best performance to date in a movie. The banter between Kendrick and Lively is snappy, a bit humorous and quite a bit wicked in some degree. Henry Golding from the hit Crazy Rich Asians is having quite a year as he is getting roles but he does not quite fit this particular role of a loving, husband, yet, lazy husband.
Ok, the third act...I will say that the movie does go off the rails as it takes one too many twists and turns for its own good because director Paul Feig (I know, Feig, who did Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy?) plays with the story like toys a little too much being over-reaching with me and potentially the audience by zig-zagging all over the map. The climax became too crazy and conventional and it was anti-climactic. But, the third act does not quite hurt the movie as the rest was superior and I like that it is not a cliched angle of empowerment and female "friendship", yet an odd and fresh angle of those two subjects. I was not looking forward to this movie based on its promotional campaigns because it looked bad but this is one of the more surprising movies of the year as it is a sleek, sophisticated, humorous mystery that goes against more clichés than most. Sip a martini and get ready for a solid, crazy, elegant rollercoaster ride.
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