‘Spa Weekend’ Review: Leslie Mann and Isla Fisher Go Underserved in a Lukewarm Bath of a Comedy

Have you ever had the experience of booking a trip that promised to be a blissful getaway, only to find once there that you’re having…not the worst time, but definitely a disappointing one? That the food that looked so pretty online tastes bland in person, that the overstuffed pillows give you neck pains, that — come to think of it — there’s not really that much to do at this resort beyond linger beside a lukewarm pool?

If so, the aura of letdown surrounding Spa Weekend, the latest outing from writer-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, ought to feel familiar. On paper, it’s a variation on the “R-rated hijinks plus heartfelt emotion plus beloved cast” equation that’s worked so well for Bridesmaids and Girls Trip and Lucas and Moore’s own commercially successful though creatively uninspired Bad Moms. In execution, the hijinks feel awfully tame, the emotion shallow, the stars underserved.

The premise is the title, not much more and not much less. On the occasion of her she’s-not-saying-which birthday, overworked Los Angeles lawyer Jane (Leslie Mann) books a two-night stay at a wellness retreat seemingly around Malibu, though the Australia-shot production avoids getting too geographically specific. (Wherever it is, the sunsets are very pretty.)

Along with her for the ride are her two childhood besties — sweet-natured Sophie (Anna Faris), who’s withering under a boss so spoiled he can’t even buy his own Skittles, and hot-tempered Coco (Michelle Buteau), who’s working through a painful divorce while stubbornly not working through the anger management issues that led to it.

The trip promises to be precisely the break all three of them desperately need but cannot ever seem to take, because as working moms pulled every which way by ailing parents, needy kids and demanding jobs, these women cannot imagine planning so much as a date night less than three months in advance. They could certainly never do something so self-indulgent as book a whole trip on a whim — except that that’s exactly what we’ve just seen them do, within five minutes of Coco floating the idea over brunch.

I presume the whiplash-inducing speed with which the trio go from “Oh, I couldn’t possibly” to “We’ve booked the room” is meant to be aspirational: Here are women finally saying “screw it” to a society that demands they put everyone else first, and taking care of themselves for once! But it has the condescending effect of suggesting that their struggles were never real to begin with. The only thing ever actually holding them back, apparently, was their own lack of willpower.

Well, that and, in some roundabout way, their lack of appreciation for the unwanted fourth member of their circle. Mel (Isla Fisher), who’s only scored a last-minute pity invite thanks to Sophie’s guilty conscience, is “the one woman all the others secretly cannot stand” — you know, that thing Spa Weekend assures us every female friend group always has. If you can’t identify who that might be in your own girl gang, maybe that’s because it’s you. Or maybe it’s because Spa Weekend has a habit of treating all its characters’ problems as universal and therefore inherently relatable and interesting. You can practically hear the “Am I right, ladies?” after every such observation.

In fairness to Jane, Coco and Sophie, their distaste initially proves warranted. From the moment Mel bursts onto the property — boobs spilling out of her pushup bra, dildos spilling out of her suitcase, inappropriate language spilling out of her mouth — she brings nothing but chaos. When she’s around, a guided meditation session devolves into a shouting match, a chill evening into a cocaine-fueled rager, a short walk between spa treatments into, somehow, a wild golf cart chase. None of it is anything you haven’t seen before, and in Lucas and Scott’s ineffectual hands, none of it gets as nasty or raunchy or destructive as those descriptions suggest.

What’s more, Mel can’t seem to stop meddling in her friends’ live. She swipes Sophie’s phone to scream at her shitty boss. She tricks Coco’s ex (Dominic Ora-Ariki’s Roger) into rushing to her side. She baldly propositions Adam Demos’ hot yoga instructor on Jane’s behalf (“Obviously she’s on the older side, but she’s got a porno body!”). Her behavior is upsetting and mortifying and potentially life-destroying to all her friends until it’s not, as Spa Weekend slowly but predictably gets around to the argument that the world needs Mels — the hot messes who force everyone else out of their miserable but societally approved ruts.

It would be a very nice message, if not for the fact that the script undercuts it by keeping all its characters too vague and one-dimensional to care much about in any direction; I couldn’t even tell you what Coco does for a living or why Jane’s raising her kids alone. To the extent that there are any genuine chuckles or warm fuzzies to be found in Spa Weekend, it’s thanks to skills this talented core cast have deployed more effectively elsewhere.

A pretty funny scene in which Jane tries very hard to pretend she’s not extremely turned on by Demos’ Kai giving her a hand massage called to my mind the even funnier ones of Mann smiling through her tears in Blockers. Coco’s smooth, sexy chemistry with Roger made me want to revisit Buteau’s winsome turn as a heartbroken stylist in Netflix’s Survival of the Thickest. Fisher earns most of the film’s few real laughs by channeling the upbeat yet unhinged energy that’s served her so well since her breakout in Wedding Crashers. Even Faris’ miscast turn as awkward, mousy Sophie served to remind me how much more delightful she is when she gets to go weird and messy, as in The House Bunny or Smiley Face.

But the ability to occasionally evoke other, better projects does not a good film make. Spa Weekend has nothing fresh or insightful or even all that amusing to add to the familiar formula it’s borrowing — and for all its apparent good intentions, nothing much more meaningful to offer the overworked, overstressed moms of the world than the suggestion that maybe they could, like, try taking a vacation sometime. If this is what a big relaxing escape looks like, you’re better off saving the money and chilling at home.