Spa Weekend Review

Leslie Mann and Isla Fisher’s Spa Weekend is anything but relaxing

Childhood best friends turned exhausted 40 somethings Jane (Leslie Mann) Sophie (Anna Faris) and Coco (Michelle Buteau) are in desperate need of a break from their day to day lives and book a Spa Weekend to celebrate Jane’s birthday. When their uninvited trainwreck of a friend Mel (Isla Fisher) turns up to join the party, the relaxing pamper session turns into a wild weekend that rapidly goes off the rails.

From the directors of Bad Moms and the writers of The Hangover, Spa Weekend has some big raunchy comedy pedigree behind its production, but it’s a considerably tamer affair than its predecessors. If The Hangover is deemed a ‘late night’ comedy, Spa Weekend is early evening – it flirts with outrage now and then – a dildo joke here, a near nude moment there – but never really crosses the line. There is also, for better or worse, far less slapstick and physical comedy than the trailers might lead you to believe.

It’s built on the foundations of its four bankable stars. All four actors have significant backgrounds in comedy, be it stand up, sitcoms or movies, and they each clearly know how to land a line and sell a silly situation. Each are largely playing to type – but it works, and if you’re coming into a major studio 90-minute comedy expecting groundbreaking, revelatory character work, then you’re probably expecting too much.

Mann’s Jane is a lawyer/single mother who never makes any time for herself, enthusiastically accepting an invitation to a date from a co-worker before admitting the earliest time she has to available to see him in three months away. Faris’ Sophie is a browbeaten, frazzled personal assistant with a kooky attitude and an awful boss she can’t stand up to, while Buteau’s Coco is a shit talking, no nonsense recent divorcee with anger issues. The only person playing slightly against type is Isla Fisher, Mel being the sort of wild, crude, unhinged character she hasn’t really had the chance to play since her early career in Wedding Crashers – and she steals every scene doing it.

The chemistry between the four is solid, and Spa Weekend is largely a good time. A couple of the jokes really land, particularly a recurring bit about the fact that Coco’s husband has left her for an OLDER woman – but much of the rest of the run time doesn’t reach anywhere near a laugh per minute rate despite the cast’s best efforts. It’s all just a bit too safe and too preoccupied with angling itself towards a wholesome ending, where I really wished it would just lean into the lewd, crude craziness usually given to these sorts of films. I don’t need the women to learn a lesson about the power of friendship. I don’t need personal growth at the expense of laughs.

We’ve yet to reach a point where we can watch a female fronted adult comedy and not compare it to Bridesmaids, and in that sense Spa Weekend is but a pale imitation – but I’m glad to have watched it and glad it got made. The gag reel (and yes, it has a gag reel! All hail the return of the gag reel!) all but proves that this cast are funnier than the writing they’ve been given, and I’m thrilled to see Anna Faris back on a big screen. More female fronted comedies please. More silly, joyful, out of the box leading roles for 40 and 50 year old women please. Just give them better writing.

Maybe one to leave for streaming, Spa Weekend is an enjoyable enough time if not a particularly memorable or ground breaking one. It’s out in cinemas now.