Blake Lively Plays The Woman I Want To Be In Mysterious New Thriller

Blake Lively is very good at playing up the idea of Blake Lively. By that, I mean, through her various roles and public image building, she's managed to give off an air of aspirational cool mixed with untouchable glamour. Like Sarah Jessica Parker and Carrie Bradshaw, it's rather difficult to separate Lively from her Gossip Girl character, Serena van der Woodsen. Her upcoming role in this year's Paul Feig thriller (yep, the guy behind Bridesmaids is doing thrillers), A Simple Favor, is no exception. And like with Serena van der Woodsen, I want to be her.

Based on the 2017 debut novel of the same name by Darcey Bell, Lively plays Emily, a successful PR executive balancing the affluent life in Connecticut with the demands of her Manhattan job. Her friend, Sarah (played by Anna Kendrick), is a mommy blogger who just wants to be a good friend to this "wonderful, elegant person." Elegant is putting it lightly. The first trailer for A Simple Favor paints Emily's life as a dream: a wardrobe filled with gender-bending pantsuits, cummerbunds, ascots, well-kept manicures, a perfect makeup routine, and an architectural wonder of a home. She sips martinis in the afternoon and walks in from a downpour looking like a million bucks. But there's something about this character that's... off—something only Lively could bring. Like van der Woodsen, Emily has a naughty, dark secret that makes every move of hers scream "wouldn't you like to know?" It's enigmatic. It's alluring. It is my personal definition of goals.

Anyway, Emily goes missing and Sarah spends the movie trying to Girl on the Train/Gone Girl the whole thing. Come for the unreliable narrator schtick, stay for Lively doing the absolute most. 

A Simple Favor hits theaters September 14.