A signature cocktail becomes shorthand for style, seduction and intrigue in Paul Feig’s female-driven saga — and this time, a real master is the one mixing it: Alessandro Palazzi.
A Martini Made for Cinema
In Another Small Favor, the sequel to the sleek thriller A Simple Favor, the Martini steps back into the spotlight, turning into a visual language, a symbol of power and a marker of personality. Blake Lively’s character drinks it with the kind of nonchalance that draws every eye in the room. And in this second chapter, once again directed by Paul Feig, the Martini transforms a tribute to the man who helped make the drink an institution — Alessandro Palazzi, the spirit and steady hand behind London’s Duke’s Bar.
Alessandro Palazzi: A Cameo With Weight
One of the film’s most striking scenes features Palazzi himself, preparing his celebrated Martini in a moment that feels equal parts ritual and narrative. The gesture is the product of decades behind the bar; the technique, effortless and exact. He builds the drink directly in an ice-cold cocktail glass, finishing with the scent of freshly expressed lemon peel. The sound of gin sliding into chilled crystal gives the scene its quiet authority, turning it into an homage to the craft of cocktail making done properly.
The Martini as a Narrative Device with Alessandro Palazzi
In the first film, the Martini was Emily’s (Blake Lively) signature drink — icy, razor-sharp, charged with erotic tension and control. In A Simple Favor, each glass revealed something about her: the ambiguity, the danger, the allure. In the sequel, the cocktail returns with even more narrative force, becoming a bridge between worlds, a symbol of continuity, an object loaded with meaning. On screen, the Martini is seen as a metaphor, aesthetic, storytelling.
A Sip of Truth Inside the Fiction
Alessandro Palazzi’s appearance further cements the place of mixology in contemporary cinema. Including a real and deeply emblematic figure is a statement: even within the controlled architecture of fiction, there are gestures that cannot be faked — like making a perfect Martini. In bringing his craft to the film, Palazzi adds experience, muscle memory and the liquid history that every true Martini carries with it. When cinema meets high-craft mixology, the result is something you drink with your eyes and remember like a clean, elegant finish.
Image courtesy of Amazon Content Services LLC, credits Lorenzo Sisti
