Some people have been unfairly laughing off Blake Lively and her performances for years, but that is about to change, because of the actress’s performance in A Simple Favor.
Richard Lawson writes in Vanity Fair that in reality, Lively’s Hollywood hot streak started in 2015, with The Age of Adaline, where Lively is an ageless woman who glides around projecting a sorrowful wisdom. The film made $65 million off a $25 million budget. Lively followed this success with The Shallows, which made $119 million, about seven times its budget. The actress was able to manage terror and tenacity in her fight against a large C.G.I. shark, while also pulled at the audience’s heart strings.
After The Shallows, Lively’s film All I See Is You, about a blind woman who regains her sight and sees her husband in a terrifying new way, debuted, but it was considered a poorly marketed flop, despite a few good reviews.
Lawson writes that all these films showed that Lively can hold the center of film with “understated, workman-like sureness.” And then came A Simple Favor, in which she does something completely different.
This time around, Lively mixes arch comedy with sinister undertones, and she does a fantastic job. Lively is clearly forging her “own weird path” toward success, picking roles that gradually show us all what she can do, rather than what she can earn.
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