Spa Weekend review
By Joel Humphries · Watched 08.21.26
★★ 2 / 5
Spoiler-free review
Leslie Mann, Michelle Buteau, Anna Faris and Isla Fisher take wine-mom comedy to a luxury spa, where old resentments, relationship problems and one spectacularly disruptive friend turn relaxation into chaos. The cast is capable—Buteau has fun material, Faris remains naturally funny, and Fisher commits completely to being the beautiful trainwreck nobody sensible would keep inviting—but the friendships exist mostly because the screenplay insists they do. This feels designed for a lazy Sunday at home, ideally playing in the background. Nothing made me regret seeing it; very little convinced me I needed to.
Full review — contains spoilers
Spa Weekend is a comedy-drama for the wine-mom crowd. That's not an insult. That's just very clearly who this movie is for.
Leslie Mann, Michelle Buteau, Anna Faris and Isla Fisher play four longtime friends who end up together at a luxury spa weekend. The basic gag is that three of them are trying to have a relaxing adult-girlfriend getaway and their trainwreck friend shows up and blows everything apart.
This was specifically coded for white women. Again, that's not even necessarily criticism. I've seen versions of this exact movie made for Black women. I've seen versions made for Asian women. This is the white-woman version. Wine, spa, husbands, ex-husbands, careers, kids, old resentments, and one friend everyone secretly can't stand but somehow they've remained friends for 30 years anyway.
Okay.
I did not enjoy this. I can't even really say I disliked it. I was bored, and there were parts where I started nodding off.
Michelle Buteau is fun. I generally like seeing her in things anyway, and her relationship drama gives her something to play with. Anna Faris is Anna Faris. I love Anna Faris, and she is funny here because she is basically always funny when somebody gives her comedy to do. She's the friend who gets run over by everybody else, doesn't really stand up to her friends or her boss, and Faris does what she can with it.
Isla Fisher plays the trainwreck friend, and apparently the assignment was to have Isla Fisher be gorgeous while doing increasingly obnoxious things that should make everyone in the group stop inviting her places. She's very good at the gorgeous part. The rest of that character I don't particularly understand. These women love her because the script says these women love her. Fine.
Leslie Mann is basically the central character, and she's doing Leslie Mann things. She's perfectly capable. Everybody here is capable. I just don't understand why I needed to see this in a movie theater.
This is a Netflix movie. This is precisely what Netflix is for. Sunday afternoon, you're sitting around, you've got absolutely nothing to do, maybe you've got a wine cooler if you're the type of person who drinks wine coolers. I am not that person. Put this on in the background.
I don't wish I hadn't seen it. That's too strong. I just don't think I should have bothered.