Spa Weekend Is “Mom Porn,” According To Its Hilarious Star-Studded Cast
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Overview
Friendship isn’t always convenient. If you’ve been friends with someone for long enough, you know this. Chances are you’ve seen each other through breakups, bad decisions, career crises, and phases you’d both rather forget. You’ve also probably had to help them move, babysat their kids, pick them up from the airport or deal with the highs and lows of adulting. In an era of hyper individualism, the inconvenience that can come with community is used as an excuse to end friendships. The new slapstick comedy Spa Weekend is a true, raunchy, ensemble buddy movie, complete with outrageous gags and off-the-wall humor, but it also digs into the messy, complicated dynamics of a long-running friendship. And when it throws its four leads into a luxury wellness retreat where everything that can go wrong, does, it continues to ask the question: can you accept a friend for all their flaws, even when they impede your fun? Spa Weekend is naturally getting a lot of comparisons to The Hangover (the writers also directed and wrote this movie) but it’s more of a sociological exploration of female friendships, and a playful breakdown of the “one friend in the group no one likes” trope.
The friend group is made up of four of the funniest women in Hollywood. Anna Faris plays Sophie, a gloriously goofy PA working for a douchebag billionaire. Leslie Mann is Jane, an ambitious lawyer who loves her work and has made zero room in her life for romance. Michelle Buteau is Coco, an outspoken mom of two girls who is decidedly not thrilled that her ex-husband has moved on with an older woman. And there’s Isla Fisher’s Mel, the group’s chaotic wild card, whose aggressively unfiltered approach to life has the other three on edge. But as annoying as she can be, Mel’s blunt, life-affirming honesty starts cracking open the emotional baggage they’ve all been carrying around in their daily lives.
And, of course, there’s an extremely hot, uber sensitive yoga instructor in the form of Kai (Adam Demos), essentially a perfect straight male fantasy insert, who sets his sights on Jane. But while the movie has plenty of room for romance — and the kind of comedy that comes from throwing four very different women into increasingly riotous situations — Spa Weekend refuses to make a man (or motherhood) its center. The real love story here is the friendship itself. And even when you can tell the movie was written and directed by two men who decided to rest on the natural comedic talents of their cast instead of writing a compelling script, it’s still a particularly refreshing focus. And together, Faris, Mann, Buteau and Fisher are delightful, elevating what they’re given with grace and gumption as they clearly have a ball onscreen.
In conversation with Refinery29 in Las Vegas earlier this month, the powerhouse cast gets candid about the film’s friendship chaos, reexamining ambition, how the Hemsworths are connected to their group chat, and why Spa Weekend might just be the ultimate piece of “mom porn.”
Refinery29: These women end up doing things that on paper you’re not supposed to do — like get back together with an ex or date the hot vacation guy. Should we, as women, be advocating to make more mistakes, and do the thing we’re not supposed to do?
Isla Fisher: Yes, absolutely! We should all try on whatever sides of ourselves fit on a spa weekend [laughs].
It seems like so many people now choose comfort over community – Like if anyone inconveniences them at all, they are cut off. What I loved about this story is it’s about accepting your friends — flaws and all, and even when it’s maybe not convenient. Why is that message so important?
Michelle Buteau: It’s really easy to cut people off and avoid that conversation and confrontation, but your friends aren’t disposable. They were your friends for a reason. You can take a break, but come back to it and have a conversation. You know, even if it feels like you don’t have anything in common anymore, there’s a reason why you guys knew each other at that time in your life, right? No one’s going to know you like that friend from 30 years ago, right? And so that’s okay to not have everything in common, but get back to it. I think we need more conversations because there’s too much scrolling. We’ve got to have more of this [mimes kissing] in person.
There’s a lot of topless men in the movie, which I feel like we’re really brushing over… Don’t worry. We didn’t give them any dialogue.
Anna Faris: You need friends to help remind you of your own potential. I think it’s easy to get to a place in life where it’s hard to even figure out the time to grow. And if you have a great, solid friend base who’s known you for so long [it’s important]. All of our characters change for the better or make a decision that empowers them through, because of the friendship that we portray and that we have in real life. And [to Michelle] you’ve changed and helped me a lot.
MB: Come on, sis!
Isla: But I do feel like friendships nowadays, people are like, “oh, we have different politics, we can’t be friends.” Why be so divided? Let’s just come together and just have a good time.
Anna: It’s true that people are thirsty for comedy and it feels really good to be able to deliver them a movie that satisfies. I know people will leave the theater really happy.
Just the joy of it!
Isla: Also, there’s a lot of topless men in the movie, which I feel like we’re really brushing over. We’re really focused on the goats. But what I’d like to say to women at home…
Leslie Man: Mom porn!
Isla: Don’t worry. We didn’t give them any dialogue. They won’t make you laugh, but my god, you’re gonna enjoy them. You’re welcome by the way.
Thank you for your service.
[Cast laughs]
Isla, your character is so refreshing because she’s unapologetically a mess. And we rarely get to see women like her onscreen without a PSA at the end of the movie about how you shouldn’t be like that. She gets to stay messy!
Isla: She doesn’t change. That’s my favorite thing about comedy characters. They start the movie a certain way, they end a certain way. They don’t learn anything, they don’t grow. Everybody else bends to them, and that is the dream role. It’s a classic fish out of water, and I got to play her, and I was really into it.
Anna: And you’re brilliant at it.
I love this rapport. It’s clear you all built a beautiful friendship off camera too. What’s the group chat name?
Cast in unison: Spa Beauties!
Which one of you is the most active?
Isla: Intermittently, I feel like I’m a double texter but then I go offline for ages.
Michelle: Yeah, because there’s so many different time zones.
Isla: [whispers] Also what happen is we’ve got another chat with the producers and I go on the wrong f*cking chat! I’m like, I didn’t mean to invite everyone! I just wanted us! [laughs]
Leslie: Wait, why is the picture on the group chat a picture of Chris Hemsworth or is it his little brother?
Isla: I know, I’m so confused.
Michelle: Maybe because they’re Australian and we were in Australia. I don’t know if there was like an inside joke.
Anna: I don’t remember either.
Details
So your profile picture in your group chat is one of the Hemsworths?
Isla: Yes.
Michelle: LOL. I forgot about that. LOL. LOL. LOL.
Get him shirtless. One of them! For your next movie, maybe?
Michelle: Done. Done.
Isla: Don’t worry. Every night it happens for me. I get him shirtless in my mind.
But you don’t know which one? [laughs]
Isla: No, exactly. They’re interchangeable.
Our characters change for the better or make a decision that empowers them through, because of the friendship that we portray and that we have in real life.
As much as this movie is a comedy about friendship, it’s also about women juggling work and their careers and the rest of their lives. Right now, we’re in an anti-ambition era where women are rejecting some of the career pressures that have been so engrained in us. Are you thinking about ambition differently as your careers have gone on?
Anna: I love that question.
Michelle: Me too.
Isla: What a great question.
Michelle: I feel like ambition is like protecting your peace sometimes in this industry. But I also love that there’s a generation of…
Isla: Did you say protecting your penis?
Michelle: Your peace. What is happening? [laughs]
Isla: Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. I’m jet lagged.
Michelle: You have to protect your penis at all costs.
[Leslie and Anna laugh]
Isla: I was like, what do you mean?
Michelle: Peace. Same thing if you really think about it.
Isla: [laughs]
Michelle: But I do love that there’s a generation of people who are ambitious to retire early. You know, just to have a soft life.
Leslie: It’s so nice!
Michelle: And it’s so not what I’ve been taught. And so I’m like, I could do that! You know?
Isla: We might have to do that. [laughs] Depending how the goat scene goes over!
Leslie: I do feel like I’m giving myself more of a break lately and allowing myself to do less. And I never let myself do that before. I was always working as hard as I could and doing as much as I could. young people, I think that they’re so much smarter to give themselves that break because they think it’s so important. And why do you have to run yourself into the ground?
Michelle: You don’t. You just gotta run to the theaters and see Spa Weekend.
Isla: Come along and see her penis! [laughs]
Spa Weekend is in theaters now.
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Originally published at www.refinery29.com.