Blake Lively is undeniably a movie star. It may seem improbable for someone who began their career on The CW to reach such heights in the 2020s, especially when the most prominent celebrities have been in the limelight for decades. Yet, Lively has crafted her public persona so masterfully that she seems more unlikely than most of her peers to return to television anytime soon. Following a string of traditional movie-star parts, often highlighting her chic fashion sense (or, alternatively, having her battle sharks in a swimsuit), It Ends With Us emerged as her most significant solo success just last summer. Even the absurdities surrounding the gossip about that film, involving her co-star and director Justin Baldoni, play into her star image. Baldoni’s argument that her sheer star power somehow absolved him of any improper behavior is telling.

The new sequel Another Simple Favor, which follows the essential Blake Lively film A Simple Favor, was conceived before the legal battles over It Ends with Us. However, it still has a clever take on Lively’s public image and its skewed perceptions. She returns as Emily, the perfectly styled, scheming suburban mother with a shadowy history. Previously imprisoned for two decades for her identical sister’s murder, she suddenly reappears at an event for Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), her former friend who unraveled her case and penned a memoir about it. With her lawyers freeing her from jail, Emily plans to wed a wealthy man in Italy and inexplicably invites Stephanie to be her maid of honor. The high fashion, extravagant wealth, (including a famous husband), the nod to her mean-girl reputation while denying the particular gossip, and the pretense of another identity encapsulate the Lively Brand.

It’s appropriate, then, that Another Simple Favor amplifies the rivalry between Lively’s brand and another. In the original film, Kendrick’s character Stephanie, a widowed mom-blogger, was depicted as less glamorous, grappling with her own hidden truths, and the film expertly satirized how its murky mystery unfolded from the real-life alliances, rivalries, and complications within modern parenting. As the sequel kicks off, Stephanie has successfully transformed into a hashtag-friendly cold-case investigator, though her online following hasn’t yet translated into substantial book sales. Her fans are eager to watch her square off with Emily once more, regardless of how improbable that encounter might appear. Thus, Stephanie heads to Italy, embracing the mom-vlogger-detective trope to capture the moment for social media.

The Italy locations go a long way toward making Another Simple Favor feel bigger and more opulent itself; despite its status as a somewhat inexplicable streaming-only release, and the fact that director Paul Feig doesn’t exactly have an eye for striking imagery, the movie undeniably features two big stars doing their thing in lush real-world locations (in this case, primarily Capri). In that sense, it’s like a Mom Bond – and though she’s the less glamorous half of the movie’s double act, it’s Anna Kendrick who really holds this series together, if a series is what it is now.

Actually, the movie hints at some more interesting directions in its off-screen action; Stephanie has apparently cracked several more local cases in the years since the events of the original film, and one informs her new backstory. (The idea that a teacher she busted for some heinous crimes may have been innocent nags at her.) Imagine the delight of watching Kendrick solve mom-centric crimes, making wisecracks in her sensible outfits, sort of a grown-up Nancy Drew (in pluck and tenacity, not just because Kendrick is roughly the size of a Smurf). Still, it might be harder to work Lively into that framework, and the sequel understandably wants to recreate their friction – so convincing (and, again, so genuinely starry) that unfounded rumors flew that the actresses didn’t especially get along during the first movie. (Now they seem to have made two movies without any problems, if anything sharing more screen time in the sequel, so this seems almost as farfetched as the idea that this movie was, ah, never coming out.)

So we march through the convoluted plotting-relatives mechanics of Another Simple Favor, which does offer some suitably outlandish twists amidst the lovely scenery, but with less amateur-sleuth sense of discovery than the first movie, which felt like it could genuinely stay in a comedy-of-manners gear before turning surprisingly noirish. The lack of surprise is compounded by the fact that Kendrick and Lively are no longer stealth movie stars surprisingly adept at playing adults after some years of teen-to-college roles. They’re obviously the reason this movie exists.

They are also, unavoidably, the reason it holds together, albeit just barely. They’re oppositional in demeanor: Lively’s slightly opaque rich-girl sadness versus Kendrick’s chirpy, darting self-effacement. They also contrast physically: Lively is 5’10, while Kendrick has a scene in Another Simple Favor where she fits neatly into a maid’s cart. But they do share some common ground, namely that they probably could have both had lucrative TV careers but have primarily chosen to work in cinema.

Kendrick, in particular, could have killed on a decent sitcom (complimentary), and instead opts for bringing a little updated-screwball energy into her most crowd-pleasing movies. Her faux-nervous talk-show energy belies a theater-kid gameness, which is just about perfect for a “normal” mom who’s actually chasing after a life of bespoke, follower-filled crime-solving. (Never is it suggested throughout the supposedly perilous antics of Another Simple Favor that Stephanie could just get a regular-type job.) Emily, too, has kind of a false reluctance about her station in life; sure, she’s doing what she must to survive, but the attention-grabbing outfits are probably optional. The movie itself, then, fuses Lively’s imperious-yet-put-upon style with Kendrick’s self-deprecation; it wants the glamor and the self-aware digs in equal measure. As a sequel, Another Simple Favor is a disappointment on both of those fronts: trying harder, yielding fewer laughs, saying less about the culture it purports to rib. As a shared showcase for Kendrick and Lively, though, it couldn’t be clearer.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.