A Simple Favour (4K Blu-ray) (2018) |
|
A Simple Favour (4K Blu-ray) (2018) |
|
|
| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Thriller |
Audio Commentary-3! Featurette-Many Alternate Ending Deleted Scenes Outtakes |
|
| Rating |
|
||
| Year Of Production | 2018 | ||
| Running Time | 116:50 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Paul Feig |
|
Studio
Distributor |
Lions Gate Ent. Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Anna Kendrick Blake Lively Henry Golding Andrew Rannels |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | Theodore Shapiro |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Atmos 7.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 |
|
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.00:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
 |
||
| Video Format | 2160p | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.00:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
A Simple Favour (A Simple Favor in the US and on the Ultra HD disc) is a film that deserves to be seen more than it has been. It is a very modern thriller with two excellent female leads, supported by a good cast. It is exciting, well played from a suspense perspective and also includes some great comedic elements. It did reasonable business at the box office, just under $100m globally including a very creditable $7m in Australia. It is not amongst the Top 50 films of the last year in the US but certainly should have been. Considering things like Blockers and Tag did better this is disappointing.
The story revolves around single mom, Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) who lives in suburban Connecticut, in a place called Warfield. Her husband died in a car crash and she keeps herself involved by volunteering for everything and creating an online mummy vlog which has a decent subscriber base. One afternoon as she is picking her young son Miles up from school, he asks if a friend of his, Nicky, can come over for a play date. Stephanie agrees to the idea but wants to check with Nicky's mom first as Nicky is new at the school. Nicky's mom rolls up in a flash car, dressed in high fashion. Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) is nothing like the other mothers in suburbia. She runs PR at a major fashion house, modeled on Tom Ford. She agrees to the play date but only if Stephanie comes to her house as she badly needs a stiff drink. Stephanie quickly gets tipsy and reveals secrets about her life. Their relationship develops and Stephanie quickly believes that Emily is her new best friend. Emily on the other hand is quite secretive, doesn't want her picture taken and could just be using Stephanie for free babysitting. Stephanie also meets Blake's husband, Sean Townshend (Henry Golding) who is an author that doesn't write any more after one successful novel.
Things really heat up when Emily asks Stephanie to pick up Nicky after school one day but then disappears. After a couple of days, Stephanie becomes quite concerned, getting the police involved and mentioning it on her vlog. She teams up with Sean to investigate what has happened to Emily.
This film is very entertaining, well directed by Paul Feig, best known for action comedies like the new Ghostbusters and Spy. It is notable that Melissa McCarthy films directed by him are generally better than the ones not involving him. The three leads do a great job, with the two female leads putting in excellent performances. Some great music selections and score by Theodore Shapiro also add to the atmosphere. The real locations look great and are much better than using sets. Due to the storyline involving high fashion the costumes are excellent. There are some good twists but you could but you could certainly accuse the film of being a little far-fetched at times. Highly Recommended.
There are subtitles available in English for the Hearing Impaired which are clear and easy to read plus Spanish.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail | |
| Colour |  |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
The main audio track here is Dolby Atmos (resolving as True HD 7.1 on non-Atmos systems). In addition there is a Audio Descriptive track in Dolby Digital 2.0 plus a Spanish track in Dolby Digital 5.1. The Blu-ray version only has DTS HD-MA 5.1.
The audio is excellent, highlighted by the music which sounds fantastic. The film itself does not involve lots of action but things are always handled well with good surround sound effects and use of the subwoofer as required.
High quality stuff.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
| Overall | |
The menu includes music.
Not worth your time.
A high quality commentary where he discusses the influence of Hitchcock, use of black comedy, casting, using the vlog as a device to drive plot, shooting in Toronto, costumes, locations, themes, editing and more. He is funny, warm and chatty. Well worth a listen.
A less interesting commentary which is more joking around and saying how wonderful things are. Probably the one to skip.
Another high quality commentary which includes lots of interesting detail and information about the writing approach, changes from the book, costumes, use of them during the film to drive themes. Well worth listening to.
A making of featurette focused on the relationships between the characters and the three main actors. Good stuff.
Another making of featurette that focuses on production design, costumes, cinematography, locations, etc. Well worth a look.
On set video diaries, Feig talks about various scenes, locations and shooting them.
Making of the shooting scene and the physical blood effects used.
Featurette about Paul Feig's suits and walking sticks.
Making of a scene which was subsequently cut from the film. Unnecessary.
Featurette on the design for the high fashion world and the character of Dennis Nylon.
Featurette about the kids' roles and staging a fight between them.
Available with or without director intro. A superfluous idea that was sensibly cut from the film.
OK, some minor amusement.
Available with or without director intro. Loads of extra scenes, some funny, mostly expendable.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
This release seems to be the same format globally.
The video quality is excellent especially in Dolby Vision.
The audio quality is excellent.
The extras are overflowing on the disc.| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony UBP-X700 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player, using HDMI output |
| Display | LG OLEDC8PTA 55”. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 2160p. |
| Audio Decoder | Built into amplifier. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. |
| Amplification | Marantz SR5012 |
| Speakers | Monitor Audio Bronze 2 (Front), Bronze Centre & Bronze FX (Rears) + Sony SAW2500M Subwoofer |