From the writers of The Hangover comes Spa Weekend, a disastrous little trip away for all involved.
It’s strange, really, that this has hit cinemas for a proper theatrical release, because it feels, perhaps due to its screenwriters’ heritage, like a bit of a blast from the past – specifically the late 2000s. From the casting to the premise to the poster itself, this really does feel like something that ought to be airing on Amazon Prime from day one, yet it’s managed to get a genuine release all the same. That’s fantastic – I’m all for films getting their dues – but this will surely be among my 10 worst cinema outings of the year when it comes time to round up the usual suspects in December.
‘I am so sorry. She is the friend that we don’t like.’
The film stars Leslie Mann, Anna Faris and Michelle Buteau as Jane, Sophie and Coco, lifelong friends now saddled with all the responsibilities of work and motherhood. Isla Fisher is Mel, the unpredictable rogue element of the group, who never went in for either vice and instead lives a seemingly cushy life in Paris.
Burnt out from never having any time to themselves, the core trio decide to take the weekend off and book a getaway at a beachside spa resort, where they’ll be waited on by full-bodied Aussie yoga gurus and ethereal meditation yuppies. The kicker? Mel wasn’t invited, yet somehow shows up anyway, much to the chagrin of her so-called friends, whose apathy is immediately grating.
The idea that every group of women has one friend that none of the other women can stand but that all of them are too well-mannered to cut loose is surely a load of tosh whichever you slice it. Unfortunately that idea is completely central to Spa Weekend, which works to undermine two key things we’re told about these four. 1) they’re lifelong friends; no they’re not – three of them have apparently hated the other for almost forty years and 2) they’re all so busy that they have no free time.
Surely three women with that little wiggle room in their lives would have cut out the excess long, long ago rather than waste any more time on a dead friendship? Sometime during the second act, there’s a big speech about how women are raised to be agreeable and charming and avoid confrontation (sort of like the entirely watered down, high school science class version of America Ferrera’s brilliant Barbie monologue) but the basic premise of the whole thing is built on shaky ground.
For a film that’s very clearly aimed at women of a certain age, as well, I think there’s something very grim about letting any audience member sitting there in the cinema on a girls night out wonder if she’s the odd one out in her own friend group, too.
Ultimately, this isn’t a story about women putting each down or shaming one another for how they live their lives – you can tell from the very first scene exactly how the dynamic between these four will shake out by the end – but there’s little fun to be had in waiting for the characters and the film itself to catch up to us. Each of the core trio have clear issues (some of which are not fully dealt with – it sounds wild, but somebody gets fed to rabid dogs in this movie) and it’s really hard to get worked up about Mel as the problematic one when the others are quick to criticise her and mind-numbingly slow to look inwards.
Fisher is saddled with Mel, who on paper is just a catastrophe dressed up as an Australian, but given the clunky surroundings, she’s actually the most likeable character in the film by way of her just being herself, for better or for worse (usually for worse). She’s mental and I wouldn’t go near her with a ten foot pole, but there’s something to be said for her being the only supportive woman of the lot.
In keeping with the rest of the film, though, Fisher’s given painfully unfunny lines to work with. That’s a shame, because these four women are funny. The film’s credits play out against a blooper reel – again, something you don’t see as much of in movies these days, not least because some things never even get a DVD to whack such bonuses onto – and the four of them clearly had a blast making this. Their additions and ad-libs in the credits are the best part of the film, and yet nobody thought to put those into the heart of the actual film, so none of it translates into anything enjoyable or fun.
If it was just able to be an unfunny, vaguely positive little incidental comedy, then perhaps I would be softer on it, but in a modest crowd of women slap bang in the target audience, there was virtually no laughter the entire way through. Instead, I think we were all confused as to the characterisation of these women, so clearly written by men. I didn’t clock on that this was written by the guys behind The Hangover but realising that after the fact, it all makes perfectly grating sense. The men in The Hangover are horrible to each other and treat women as objects; the women here are horrible to each other and objectify the men. Some might call that fairness; I’d call it reductive all-round, in both cases.
Anyone looking for a feminist, laugh-out-loud movie this week would be much better served by stepping right out of the screening, refunding their tickets and heading back past the usher to the room next door for a sleepaway trip over at Camp Miasma.
Terrible timing to have this release coincide with that film in particular, but one is a genuinely intelligent (and hilarious) comedy about women building each other up in spite of a male-centric world and the other is this…Spa Weekend.
BBFC: Rated 15 for strong language, sex references, drug misuse.
Spa Weekend is in cinemas now.
