Searching & A Simple Favor: Worth the Trip?

Searching directed by Aneesh Chaganty staring John Cho is a film I left thinking ‘Wow, that was amazing. Too bad the promotion was horrible so no one is going to see it.’ As for A Simple Favor directed by Paul Feig and staring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively is one where I thought ‘This is a cinematic guilty pleasure. Great promotion. What a shame that the third act is a dumpster fire of confusing-ness.’ Here is a quick rundown of why these two films are worth the price of admission or not: because bad promotion doesn’t mean the film is bad.

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Searching is a film that I hope will excel in the ancillary market, as a rental or an airplane film. I say this because that is its fate, but that’s not what it deserves. It needs to be seen on the biggest screen where you can see every giant detail clearly; where you need to be invested in what is being presented, to keep up and never forget what has been shown before because it will be important. It’s a film that seemingly never ends, and where you think it would end, it only throws us, the audience, into the third act. It’s a giant rollercoaster of details with an investigation that is chock-full of information and every little detail counts. Trust me, it will all make sense in the end.

The same cannot be said for A Simple Favor. Though it is a truly beautiful film with stellar outfits and an outstanding performance from Anna Kendrick and a great one by Blake Lively, the ending of the film is such a complete mess that you leave the theater wondering if it was worth seeing all that glamour to only be thrust into a hastily put together third act. In my opinion, yes the film had great promotion and beautiful costumes, but it also had decent acting from the characters that aren’t Anna or Blake and the very rushed ending made it seem that this film is going to flourish in the ancillary market. But, I do not think it holds a candle, or a dry martini in this case, to Searching.