Spa Night (2016)
Storyline
A young Korean-American man works to reconcile his obligations to his struggling immigrant family with his burgeoning sexual desires in the underground world of gay hookups at Korean spas in Los Angeles.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Trailer
Reviews
90
Village Voice
There have been upbeat coming-out films (But I'm a Cheerleader) and tragic, infuriating ones (Boys Don't Cry, Brokeback Mountain). Andrew Ahn's Spa Night is executed on a significantly smaller scale, a deliberately anticlimactic one, which makes it all the more doleful.
90
The film is a contemplation of the loneliness, tension and anxiety of outsiders pursuing a piece of the American dream.
80
Neither obtuse nor obvious, Spa Night finds the perfect balance in communication. It shows enough, but not too much; it articulates its ideas, but it doesn’t asphyxiate the audience with them.
75
Slant Magazine
It recombines elements of the emigrant saga and the coming-of-age story into a searching, fresh-faced portrait.
75
Though it leaves too many narrative blanks unfilled, Spa Night is a promising debut from a filmmaker with a lot of insight into the different guises that immigrants and their offspring wear as they make their way through the world.
