‘Spa Weekend’ Movie Review: Four Funny Ladies, One Pretty Lame Comedy
Photo from Black Bear Pictures
From Jeremy Kibler
Putting funny people together is no guarantee of a funny movie. Bad Moms was a crowd-pleasing surprise, and ditto for Girls Trip. But Fun Mom Dinner was too tame to make a mark, and The Fabulous Four was a depressingly unfunny dud. Spa Weekend follows the same female-driven blueprint, essentially pitching itself as “Bad Moms’ Spa Weekend” — it even comes from The Hangover writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who also wrote and directed both Bad Moms movies. Yet with comedic talents like Leslie Mann, Michelle Buteau, Anna Faris on board, and Isla Fisher, the results are strictly second-rate.
Even Los Angeles moms need a break. Working lawyer and single mom Jane (Leslie Mann) barely has time to go on a date. Newly divorced Coco (Michelle Buteau) shares custody of her two daughters with an ex who can’t handle her anger issues (and whatever you do, don’t call her an “angry Black woman”!). Sophie (Anna Faris) is a pushover who can’t stand up to her man-baby boss. For Jane’s birthday weekend, the ladies decide to ditch their responsibilities and unwind at an upscale spa resort. The friend group once had a fourth member, Mel (Isla Fisher), but they initially leave the wild card off the guest list. She eventually gets a pity invite, arrives with a suitcase full of dildos, and proceeds to make a scene wherever she goes.
Goat yoga and mud baths ensue. A golf-cart chase and crash follow. Spa treatment montages abound. And then there’s hunky, charming yoga instructor Kai (played by the appropriately hunky, charming Adam Demos), who cooks gnocchi for Jane and seems plucked straight from a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
As a raunchy, R-rated escapist romp, Spa Weekend means well. But its screenplay is so threadbare and predictable that even four gifted comedians can only do so much to keep it afloat. Lucas and Moore know the formula, but this time the formula feels less like a recipe for hilarity than a reheated Bad Moms leftover.
Mann, Faris, Buteau, and Fisher are all pros, bringing enough comedic gusto and inspired delivery to occasionally brighten the material and their pretty two-dimensional characters. Faris gets the short end of the stick, stranded with an underdeveloped Sophie while her co-stars get more room to play. Fisher, meanwhile, is an energetic bull in a china shop, gleefully leaning into Mel’s bawdy unpredictability. She has no filter and may be a little batshit-crazy, but Fisher finds flashes of humanity beneath the outrageous behavior.
Spa Weekend is a harmless, middle-of-the-road trifle. It goes down easy, but with four stars this funny, it should be a whole lot more hilarious than it is. Consider it a spa day for your brain: pleasant enough while it lasts, utterly forgettable once you check out.
Rating: 2/5
Spa Weekend is currently streaming.
