REVIEW: SPA WEEKEND
THE GIST
It was predictable and formulaic but I still had the occasional good laugh.
It’s a girls night out film and should be enjoyed as such, after a wine or six.
Spa Weekend is a mixed bag because it tries so hard to be like similar great comedic films that have come before it, but fumbles the delivery in a number of ways. This is most clearly demonstrated by a predictable story and performances that too often mistake being over the top for being funny.
Going in, I couldn’t help but think this was going to grate me. The trailer made it look like this film had risen from the ashes of popular past comedies. Bridesmaids was one that came to mind. The only one, come to think of it. And I thought that film was hilarious.
That’s not to say movies like Spa Weekend are bad. It’s just that I personally don’t relate to them as much. Just as I expect many women don’t relate to I Love You, Man. So I took that into account both while watching and reviewing it.
I had two questions going in:
Would it be a good movie in its own right?
Would it puncture the Grinch bubble surrounding me and make me genuinely like it?
Spa Weekend sometimes feels like it was written by AI after prompting: “Write a funny girls’ night movie using similar past films for ideas.”
Considering how phoned-in parts of it feel, it’s hard to believe the writers behind this also wrote The Hangover. The overall story is very familiar ground: middle-aged people need to escape their boring and problematic lives, an event gives them temporary freedom to vent and get drunk, and there’s an oddball member of the group who causes chaos along the way.
Secrets come out. Friendships implode. The oddball goes too far. Everyone parts ways. Then we discover they weren’t quite what they appeared to be, redemption arrives and everyone forgives each other.
Ugh.
There’s nothing automatically wrong with using a familiar formula, but when the story is this predictable, the comedy has to be strong enough to make the journey feel fresh. Too often, Spa Weekend tries to compensate by making everything bigger and louder instead.
The cast are all fine actors, and I enjoy them in plenty of other things, but the group never quite develops the effortless comedic chemistry that films like Bridesmaids thrive on. It often feels like they are performing comedy rather than naturally finding it together.
The blooper reel at the end usually feels like a victory lap for this kind of movie, where you get to see how much fun the cast had making it. Here, it strangely reinforced the feeling that the comedic chemistry wasn’t really there. I would give you a specific example, but it was unmemorable.
Spa Weekend also seems to mistake being over the top for being funny.
Isla Fisher’s character Mel is supposed to be the loud, crass and vulgar one, but whenever the writing doesn’t quite deliver the laughs, the performance seems to get more exaggerated.
Walking out of a meditation session, Mel grabs a crystal from a shelf and causes a domino effect that sends the shelves and crystals crashing down. It’s trying to be physical comedy, but it mostly just made the character annoying.
She wasn’t alone, either. Everyone gets moments like this, which makes me think the problem points back to the direction as much as the performances.
Leslie Mann plays Jane, who has a scene involving a tantric hand massage that becomes so ridiculous she orgasmically breaks into Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable, telling the masseuse to move “to the left, to the left”.
It was a bit cringey.
I can’t remember a specific moment with Michelle Buteau’s character that was quite as over the top, but that same tendency was there throughout the film.
One saving grace was that when the writing was good and the acting hit its stride, Spa Weekend did manage to get some genuine laughs out of me.
This was most noticeable with Anna Faris as the meek and innocent Sophie.
When around 20 dildos spill out of Mel’s bag, Sophie innocently asks:
“Was I supposed to bring a dildo?”
Or while everyone is talking about champagne, she suddenly blurts out:
“Champagne makes me fart.”
They’re simple lines, but Faris sells them through timing and delivery rather than trying to force the joke. At times, it reminded me of her earlier Scary Movie days.
She also gets some slapstick moments, including being thrown off a golf cart, and she was easily one of the biggest reasons I still enjoyed parts of the film.
So, to answer my questions going in:
Was it a good movie in its own right?
Sort of.
Did I genuinely like it?
Some parts.
Spa Weekend isn’t terrible, and there are enough laughs scattered throughout to stop it from becoming a complete write-off. But too often it relies on a familiar formula and exaggerated performances to create comedy instead of allowing the writing, timing and characters to do the work.
When it does slow down and let the jokes land naturally, particularly with Anna Faris, you can see the funnier movie hiding underneath.
Unfortunately, most of the time it just falls a bit flat.
