Spa Weekend (dirs. Jon Lucas and Scott Moore)

by Jack Martin | Aug 28, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 97 mins

UK Distributor: Black Bear Films

UK Release Date: 21 August 2026

WHO’S IN SPA WEEKEND?

Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann, Anna Faris, Michelle Buteau, Adam Demos, Dominic Ona-Ariki, Yasmin Kassim, Stephen Hunter, Damian Walshe-Howling, Kate Lister

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (directors, writers), John Friedberg and Suzanne Todd (producers), Philip White (composer), Danny Ruhlmann (cinematographer), James Thomas (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A group of over-worked friends (Fisher, Mann, Faris and Buteau) spend a chaotic weekend at a luxury spa…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SPA WEEKEND?

It is so easy to tell when a movie that is aimed at and primarily starring women has been made almost entirely by men – and boy, is Spa Weekend one of them.

Writer-director duo Jon Lucas and Scott Moore had a lucky break with their 2016 film Bad Moms – less so with its sequel A Bad Moms Christmas, but that’s for another time – which revelled in its raunchy nature and off-kilter humour as much as their more male-centric movies like 21 & Over and the original Hangover movie (which they wrote for director Todd Phillips), but still had enough room for their female leads to feel like actual people rather than just a man’s basic idea of what a woman is or actually wants. Spa Weekend, on the other hand, feels like they watched a season of Sex and the City and decided that they too could make their own female-centric slice of wish fulfilment combined with the same formula that worked for them before, and didn’t even bother to check if it rang true with any other woman in their lives.

Their efforts have resulted in a crass, unfunny and obnoxious collection of crude and shallow gags that bring down a lot of talented actors, all of whom are stuck with a script that all of their skills put together cannot overcome, leaving them all to drown in a rather odious mud bath of its own making.

Similar to Bad Moms – and, to an extent, The Hangover – the film focuses on a group of friends who have become overwhelmed by their hectic lifestyles. Jane (Leslie Mann), a high-flying lawyer and single parent, can’t even arrange a simple date with a co-worker until three months into her schedule; Sophie (Anna Faris) is the put-upon assistant of an absolute man-child of a wealthy boss who is apparently incapable of doing anything on his own; and Coco (Michelle Buteau) is dealing with anger issues whilst also being separated from her husband Roger (Dominic Ona-Ariki), who’s begun seeing an older woman – and yes, with that comes a whole bunch of old jokes at the poor woman’s expense, because Lucas and Moore really don’t have anything fresh under their belt.

Anyway, the three of them decide that the answer to their problems is a weekend away at a luxury spa resort, which as the wish fulfilment aspect dictates might as well be The White Lotus in terms of how pristine and high-end everything is (how these women are able to afford such a place, even at a meagre discount for just a couple of nights, is anyone’s guess). However, their relaxing getaway comes to a chaotic halt when the fourth and most unhinged member of their group, Mel (Isla Fisher), comes crashing into the picture, and from there everything that can go wrong, does in fact go wrong. And most, if not all of it, really is down to Mel herself, who within hours of arriving manages to destroy multiple pieces of resort property, gets one of her friends fired from their job, and instigates not one but two awkward unions with an ex-lover and the resort’s hunky yoga instructor Kai (Adam Demos).

Yet, the film remains insistent that this absolute nightmare of a character is actually a force of good for this group, when in fact she is the sort of friend that you wish was never a part of your circle in the first place, on account of how much of a bad influence she is on others as well as herself. This is the kind of character who, if this were an all-male cast which Lucas and Moore so clearly want this to be, you could definitely see someone like Adam DeVine or Dan Fogler playing instead, or at least someone who is known for playing things loud and over-the-top and who thinks screeching at the top of their lungs makes their trite dialogue any funnier. None of this is on Fisher, who is and has been a very funny performer in other things, and is admirably putting as much energy as she can into her material, but she is given absolutely no consistent direction or characterisation, or at least enough to contain her character’s painfully irritating manner that drags the whole movie down further than it has already been dragged.

The writing often reaches sitcom levels of sub-par comedy writing, complete with pause-for-laughter moments that follow scenes that you’re not entirely sure are even meant to be funny, since they often end on such an awkward or abrupt note where there’s not a mere hint of a joke. It also reaches a point during all the supposedly wacky hijinks where you actually start to root for the antagonistic spa owner, who’s written as such a cartoonishly ice-cold villain -almost like a stern principal in a shenanigans-filled high school movie – yet she’s entirely in the right for simply wanting to evict these women for causing so much damage and rambunctious chaos at what is meant to be this calm and relaxing resort for other guests.

But no, the film instead hides behind its core message of girlhood triumphing over somewhat reasonable evil, which here rings entirely false because Lucas and Moore have no idea how to address their characters’ genuine gender-specific issues without adding their natural alpha-male mindset to the mix. Because of that, Spa Weekend comes off as painfully irritating, earning more groans than belly-laughs, and failing to utilise its genuinely talented cast in roles that vastly hinder their comedic abilities, which makes this a film that’s impossible to relax around.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Spa Weekend is a laugh-free comedy that often feels painfully obnoxious, thanks to writing and direction that can’t get over their shared male-centric mindset for a wish fulfilment story filled with tropes and unfunny jokes, and performances by an otherwise comedically talented cast that grate more than they inspire laughter.