''The Favor'' is a 1994 American

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film directed by

Donald Petrie Donald Mark Petrie (born April 2, 1954) is an American film director and actor. Life and career Petrie was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dorothea (née Grundy), a television producer, actor, and novelist, and Daniel Petrie, a dir ...

and written by

Sara Parriott Sara Parriott is an American screenwriter working in partnership with Josann McGibbon. The team's first major success was a screenwriter credit for the early Brad Pitt film, '' The Favor''. Their major works since then include ''Three Men and ...

and

Josann McGibbon Josann McGibbon is an American screenwriter who previously teamed with Sara Parriott in one of the longest writing partnerships in Hollywood; they were a team for 33 years from 1986-2019. Biography The team's first major success as screenwrit ...

. It stars

Harley Jane Kozak Harley Jane Kozak (born January 28, 1957) is an American actress and author. She made her film debut in the slasher film ''The House on Sorority Row'' (1982), and had a recurring role as Mary Duvall on the soap opera '' Santa Barbara'' between 1 ...

Elizabeth McGovern Elizabeth Lee McGovern (born July 18, 1961) is an American actress and musician. She has received many awards, including a Screen Actors Guild Award, three Golden Globe Award nominations, and one Academy Award nomination. Born in Evanston, Ill ...

Bill Pullman William Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American actor. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater, he was an adjunct professor at Montana State University before deciding to pursue acting. He made his film debut in ''R ...

Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...

and

Ken Wahl Ken Wahl (born October 31, 1957) is a retired American film and television actor, popular in the 1980s and 1990s, best known for the CBS television crime drama '' Wiseguy''. Early life and career Wahl, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, Note: ...

. The original music score was composed by

Thomas Newman Thomas Montgomery Newman (born October 20, 1955) is an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career that has spanned over four decades, he has scored numerous films including '' The Player'' (1992); ''The Sha ...

Plot

Kathy has seemingly been happily married to Peter, but their relationship has grown routine. She cannot help but wonder what would happen if she ever got together with her high school sweetheart, Tom, whom she had never slept with. Being married prevents Kathy from finding out what happened to Tom, so she asks her single, permiscuous, commitment-phobic friend Emily to do it for her. She asks her to look him up when she goes to Denver, sleep with him, then tell Kathy what it was like. Emily does this, but when she tells Kathy that Tom is awesome and they had sex all night, their friendship suffers, as does Kathy's marriage. Kathy becomes even more distracted, and regularly tries to seduce oblivious Peter. At the opening of Elliot, Emily's young lover, the women again talk about Tom. Emily storms off, leaving Kathy to comfort him, which Peter observes. Things become even more complicated when Emily learns she is pregnant, and says she is uncertain if Tom or her 'boyfriend' Elliot is the father. Kathy tells Elliot about the pregnancy, simultaneously a work colleague of Peter's convinces him she may be cheating. Secretly following her, it seems like she's having an affair with Elliot. Elliot has a show in Denver, and Kathy ends up on the same flight. She tells him the baby is actually Tom's, so she's going to find out if they still have a spark. As her room in the Hyatt isn't ready yet, she leaves her bag with Elliot to look for Tom. As Tom has just finished a fishing competition, they go to his cabin so he can shower. In the meantime, Peter shows up at the hotel, hitting Elliot before he can explain. He then heads to get his wife Kathy, Emily soon follows. Her taxi beats Peter's, so she can warn Kathy. In the end both women and all three men are at the cabin, the two couples reconciling and Tom showing he's not relationship or father material. Kathy helps Emily plan her wedding with Elliot.

Cast

as Kathy Whiting *

as Emily Embry *

as Peter Whiting *

as Elliot Fowler *

as Tom Andrews * Ginger Orsi as Gina * Leigh Ann Orsi as Hannah * Larry Miller as Joe Dubin * Gary Powell as Fishermen

Release

''The Favor'' was filmed in 1990, but went into

wide release In the American motion picture industry, a wide release (short for nationwide release) is a film playing at the same time at cinemas in most markets across the country. This is in contrast to the formerly common practice of a roadshow theatrical re ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

on April 29, 1994, owing to Orion's bankruptcy in 1991. It was released to

home video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...

on the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

format for Region 1 on December 29, 2001, through

MGM Home Entertainment Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment LLC (d/b/a MGM Home Entertainment and formerly known as MGM Home Video, MGM/CBS Home Video and MGM/UA Home Video) is the home video division of the American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. History 1 ...

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On the

film-critics Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outl ...

aggregate site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, it received a 27% approval rating based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a 51 out of 100 based on 11 reviews, indicating “mixed or average reviews.” Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

Year-end lists

* Honorable mention –

Michael MacCambridge Michael MacCambridge (born June 21, 1963) is an American author, journalist and TV commentator. He is the author, co-author, or editor of 8 books, including the acclaimed ''America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation''. M ...

, ''

Austin American-Statesman The ''Austin American-Statesman'' is the major daily newspaper for Austin, the capital city of Texas. It is owned by Gannett. The paper prints Associated Press, ''New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', and ''Los Angeles Times'' internation ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Favor, The 1994 films 1994 romantic comedy films American romantic comedy films 1990s English-language films Orion Pictures films Films directed by Donald Petrie Films scored by Thomas Newman Films shot in Portland, Oregon 1990s American films