Caution: This post contains major spoilers for A Simple Favor. Seriously, do not continue if you don’t want the ending spoiled!
It’s impossible to overstate how perfectly cast Blake Lively is as Emily, the mysterious, gin-martini-swilling PR exec in A Simple Favor (in theaters now). She delivers her lines—most of which are delightfully over-the-top—with ease and authority, and walks with a cane as if the sheer weight of her swagger might pull her down otherwise.
The movie begins with Emily befriending mommy vlogger Stephanie (played by the pitch perfect, pun intended, Anna Kendrick). They drink together and share secrets, have play dates and drink some more. But then Emily suddenly disappears—and Stephanie is left to figure out what really happened to her new BFF. Did Emily’s husband (the handsome Henry Golding) kill his wife for her $4 million life insurance policy? Or is Emily, in fact, still alive? Whatever the case, Emily is not exactly your typical suburban mom.
Here, 17 of the wildest things she says and does over the course of the movie.
1. “I let you tear my labia as you exited my body.” Emily says this to her son, Nicky, when she picks him up from school and he complains that she never lets him do anything fun. He’s in first grade.
2. She has a giant painting of her vagina hanging in her living room. It’s technically more of a full-body portrait, but because it’s painted from the perspective of someone looking up from Emily’s thighs, her vagina appears disproportionately large. Every art collection needs a conversation piece, right?
3. She wears a dickey. Emily’s style is a significant part of her allure, so when she casually removes her collared shirt as if it’s a clip-on tie, it begs the question: Are false shirt-fronts the new lingerie?
4. She strolls through the park in a tuxedo. Paired with magenta gloves. As you do.
5. And wears a tie with no shirt. Because who needs a collar when you can complete your look with side-boob and a cane?
6. “Erase it or I slap a fucking injunction on your yearbook.” This is how Emily responds when Stephanie takes a candid picture of her. (Remember those words next time your friend posts an unflattering pic of you on Insta.)
PHOTO: Peter Iovino
7. “Prudes are people too.” She’s not wrong.
8. She claims to have had a threesome with her husband, Sean, a novelist turned professor, and his T.A. Stephanie drunkenly one-ups her by admitting she had sex with her half-brother after meeting him at their father’s funeral. This earns her the nickname “brother fucker,” which Emily says not once, not twice, but four times.
9. She shamelessly admits to Sean that she stole his mother’s most valuable and sentimental ring. Her confession is seen in a flashback that ends with Sean and her conceiving Nicky in an airplane bathroom.
10. She fakes her death for a $4 million life insurance settlement. Here’s where things get really bananas…
11. She lies about being a twin. Scratch that: She lies about being a triplet. She was raised as Hope McLendon along with her sister Faith, and they ate their triplet, Charity, in the womb.
12. They also killed their dad in fire. This is why they both have a flame tattoo on their wrist. It’s also why they’ve been estranged for 14 years.
13. She drowns her sister. After seeing a pic of Emily (a.k.a. Hope) on Facebook, Faith asks her sister to meet at their old camp in Michigan and attempts to extort her for a million dollars. (This is why Emily doesn’t let anyone take her photo.) Instead, Emily drowns Faith, who is now a heroin addict, and decides to fake her own death for the aforementioned insurance policy.
14. She throws a wrench in the air and lets it fall on her face. Once she knows Stephanie has figured out the truth—Stephanie has been giving her hints via her vlog—Emily decides to frame Sean as an abuser. At this point, Emily thinks she’s gotten Stephanie on her side by pitting her against Sean. (Oh yeah: Stephanie and Sean had moved in together when they still thought Emily was dead.)
15. “That’s how you grieve? Balls deep in my best friend?” Emily says this to Sean. She was not happy to see him move on with Stephanie.
16. Emily shoots Sean. Stephanie shows up to Sean’s house with a gun, pretending to have snapped so that Emily might confess the whole truth—only Emily had, in fact, cut their planted microphones. But double (triple? quadruple?) twist: Stephanie was wearing a tiny nanny cam on her button the whole time, and she live-streamed the confrontation on her vlog.
17. Emily tries to shoot Stephanie. Figuring she was about to go to jail anyway, she aims to shoot Stephanie—only to get mowed down by another parent (Andrew Rannells) at their kids’ school. “You fuck with one of the moms,” he says. “You fuck with all of us.”
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