The script does this movie few favors

Sexual fantasies are interesting. They seem so real, so lacking in any fault or flaw, and so much more fun than whoever is in front of us. So much so that the communication breakdown is easy to miss. “The Favor” makes the bold claim that it’s not just men who enjoy them, but also women, which kinda feels revelatory for a 90’s movie to admit.


“The Favor” is about two female friends. Kathy (Harley Jane Kozak) has fallen into a dull routine with her husband Peter (Bill Pullman) and is now having daily fantasies about her High School boyfriend. When her best friend Emily (Elizabeth McGovern) announces she’ll be traveling to his neck of the woods, Kathy asks her to look him up.


Emily has issues of her own. She runs an art gallery and is in a relationship with Elliot (Brad Pitt), a man younger than her. She is unsure whether she can really build a life with him and so when she sees the High School boyfriend, who looks like the Brawny Paper Towel guy, her emotions get the better of her and she winds up sleeping with him.


This is something Kathy wanted her to do, as it seems she never actually slept with him herself, but wants the full report. But, in the film’s funniest scene, Emily’s report is far more glowing and involved than Kathy ever wanted it to be, and she winds up regretting the decision entirely.

This kicks off a whole string of tangled complications, all having to do with Kathy being more keen than ever to visit the boyfriend, Emily dealing with the fallout of her nightly trist with him, Elliot getting jealous, Peter suspecting his wife of sleeping with Elliot, and the boyfriend being none the wiser about any of this til the last third of the film.

Perhaps the most complex thing here though is just the look at female friendship itself, which is consumed of so much yin and yang moments of support and well wishes, but also jealousy, competition, and going behind each other’s back that it’s no wonder men still don’t understand women at all. It all feels surprisingly real.

Kozak plays this housewife with a good blend of wanting to be seen and wanting some excitement. The motivations of this love-starved person make a kind of sense, even when her ideas seem outlandish. And McGovern is compelling as a woman not beholden to any one man because she is still trying to figure out what exactly she wants.

The script is sadly worth far less than these two actresses though. The misunderstandings and characters all running around chasing each other down isn’t nearly as funny as the writers seem to think, supplying these caricature men characters played by Larry Miller and Ken Wahl (as the HS boyfriend) is just bizarre and doesn’t work at all.

Bill Pullman’s charm is also so badly misused here. He’s cast as a guy who’s so much of a boob he can’t even tell when his wife is blatantly trying to seduce him. And a scene where she fantasizes about his death and making out with the boyfriend at the funeral just seems cruel and more concerning about their marriage as a whole.

The problem with “The Favor” is that it’s interesting but feels like it’s wasting time trying to be funny. Rather than a witty script and real conversation, screwball antics are added to seemingly replace each. Even the ending feels like nothing more than a quick, goofy wrap-up. It, like the script, does this movie very few favors.