SBG 124: A Simple Favor
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Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that would risk it all for Linda Cardellini to paint us like one of her French girls.
This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out to talk about why the 2018 crime comedy A Simple Favor Should’ve Been Gay(er). This movie is honestly a masterpiece. It stars Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick, Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), and queer icon Linda Cardellini. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this movie somehow, it follows the story of two moms, Stephanie and Emily, who meet at their kids’ school and quickly become unlikely besties with benefits. When Emily suddenly goes missing after asking for ‘a simple favor’, Stephanie leaps into action to unravel the mystery of her best friend’s disappearance (but not without f*cking Emily’s husband, wearing all her clothes, and playing mommy to Emily’s son).
Every gay remembers where they were when they first saw Blake Lively kiss Anna Kendrick on the mouth after calling her baby approximately 69 times. Nothing is more frustrating than eating up 2 hours of chart-topping chemistry and glaringly obvious foreplay to then watch Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) and Emily (Blake Lively) betray one another in the end. Even with the disappointing ending, this is a movie we can’t help loving wholeheartedly for being just so incredibly gay and bonkers unhinged. Emily is canonically bisexual from the jump, quick to tell Stephanie all about her hot painter ex (Linda Cardellini) and threesome with her husband’s TA. After all, what straight woman has a life-size portrait of their full bush just hanging in the main room of their house for all to see? In addition to the dating and sexual experiences that she is absolutely not shy about, Emily exudes bisexual confidence from the second she appears on screen in slow-mo in the pouring rain wearing the hottest suit ever made. From the moment we watch Stephanie become a mess of gay panic in front of Emily, we are hooked on them as a couple. The two U-Haul faster than anything we’ve ever seen before; sharing martinis, secrets, husbands, houses and spit while loudly declaring themselves to be “best friends” after knowing one another for approximately 2 weeks.
While Emily may be the most open about her queerness, there is no question in our minds about Stephanie’s sexuality. This girl is down bad for Emily, oscillating between the classic “Do I want to be her or be with her” that many a sapphic can relate to. Sure, she sleeps with Emily’s husband, but you cannot convince us that she actually cares about that man. Emily doesn’t even care about that man. It still makes zero sense to us that Stephanie and Emily do not take the 4 million dollars and run away together into the sunset after toasting with martinis over Emily’s gravestone.
We know one thing for sure, A Simple Favor Should’ve Been Gay(er).
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