‘A Simple Favor’ and Female Psychopaths

We all know psychopaths and psychopathic traits. Clinically speaking, it’s called antisocial personality disorder. Psychopaths in general are all different, but female psychopaths are divergent. To sum out the typical traits of a psychopath:

· Lack of remorse

· Sexual promiscuity

· The general charm that they’re able to generate it with no effort, and with no magic sticks

Speaking of charm, in A Simple Favor, Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) is a public relations director for a fashion company “ a married mother, oh, and a psychopath”. Emily’s capricious personality conveys her capability of being enchanting and funny one moment, then intimidating the next.

Where it starts

Emily meets Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), a sweet mother whose child forms a friendship with Emily’s child at their son’s school. It’s not too long before Emily starts using Stephanie as a babysitter. Emily asks Stephanie to give her child a ride from school to home because she has unfinished business. After a while, Emily disappears and Stephanie makes it her mission to find Emily.

Stephanie then goes digging into Emily’s life. This is no easy task, as psychopaths love to keep their life private. The less everyone else knows, the better. Stephanie comes to the conclusion that there’s something “off” about Emily. The more she digs, the more everything tells her to stay away.

What is it about Emily?

When Stephanie takes a picture of Emily, it first seems like Emily just doesn’t like her picture taken, but then she snaps with, “erase it now or I’ll slap an injunction on the whole fucking yearbook.” You can clearly tell that something is off. This is typical female psychopath behavior, just like flipping a switch. One day they’re your best friend, the next you’re on their blacklist. Emily keeps everyone around her off balance, as well as the audience. She appears to be in control and only lets her control fly away when she decides to exploit narratives of victimhood in helping her manipulation.

Typical psychopath behavior involves control, control of everything and everyone, controlling them by fear, by love, anything. Case in point, Emily sends messages to Stephanie via her son to tell Stephanie that she’s watching and that everything’s going according to her plan.

“Female psychopaths often tend to slip under the net, but can be just as dangerous as males” -Georgia Sewell.

In A Simple Favor, Emily appears to be a normal wife with a son, so no one tends to suspect her. She expresses her psychopathy in more covert and manipulative ways, meaning her true nature is rarely identified. She fits like a glove in society, she sustains a job and family just like everyone else, she doesn’t look like a killer, and she definitely doesn’t act like one.

Emily's hidden past

Apparently, Emily had childhood trauma , her mother always had the biting comment , and her father was abusive to her and her twin sister. The sisters' survival method was burning down the house and running away, and so they did. They couldn’t be seen together after the fire because the cops were looking for the big blonde arson twins. The sisters always got each other's back, but Emily’s twin walked away, and she never looked back.

Emily’s little play had to include her twin sister. After abandoning her, Emily meets up with her twin and has a little chat in the water. Two sentences said, Emily then drowns her sister and puts her marriage ring on her finger. Mission accomplished, kill the twin sister, and no one knows which one is who.

Mastering the victim role

Emily severely hurts herself in order to play the victim. Female psychopaths are more likely to use psychological pain to control whoever. Emily victimizes herself, even fakes her death, for money.

Emily only has a plan for herself, which thanks to Stephanie, was brought down. When Stephanie busts Emily, she shifts her plan to frame herself as an injured wife whose husband is an abusive failed novelist who allegedly forces her to stage her own death in order to collect a four-million-dollar life insurance policy. Emily learns to master the appearance of typically female emotions in a way to trick those around her, including the authorities and the audience.

Xanthe Mallett, a forensic criminologist, said that “Psychopathic offenders’ crimes are more often motivated by power, dominance or personal gain and female psychopaths are also more likely to repeat-offend than those without psychopathic tendencies.”

Female psychopaths are less violent than male psychopaths; they harm others through gossip and rumors. Emily in A Simple Favor is charming, but it’s her charm that destroys everyone in her path.