With its deft, open-ended ending, Spa Night paints a poignant picture of the role gay men and women are playing in elevating and expanding the definition of success in the early moments of this new Millennium.

| Jun 9, 2020

[It] takes its time letting his desires to build up, reminding us that this is more than a coming-out coming-of-age story as it alternates and intermixes the struggles of immigrant life, and the particular condemnations of nontraditional masculinity.

| Mar 13, 2020

The film's specificity, combined with Ahn's sensitivity towards his own characters, go a long way to establishing Spa Night's unique placement among US cinema.

| May 22, 2019

Writer-director Andrew Ahn and cinematographer Ki Jin Kim deliver a sharp-looking movie with a congruous visual and tonal concept on a presumably low budget, and it all feels genuine and resonant enough to halfheartedly recommend.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 5, 2019

Although Seo and Ahn are able to tap into David's confusion and agony -- especially when filtered through the lens of his damningly hopeful parents -- there's never much more to David (or his story) than that.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 2, 2017

Ahn and cinematographer Ki Jin Kim work with levels of color and quiet stylization that gently nudge the film into sweet moments of cinematic subjectivity.

| Nov 29, 2016

he movie is packed with dramatic inner rhymes and startling colour shifts that convey the challenges and pleasures of breaking away from your parents, even if -- especially if -- you love them.

| Nov 4, 2016

Writer-director Andrew Ahn has made a confident, assured, low-key debut that's a textbook example of how to make a compelling small-budget movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 29, 2016

Coming out as queer is always a difficult process, as is making an interesting movie about coming out in 2016, but Andrew Ahn's meditative Spa Night pulls it off.

| Sep 28, 2016

The assured feature debut by Andrew Ahn is also the story of a young gay man's sexual awakening, and its sensitive lead performance affectingly expresses the tension between tradition and personal identity.

| Aug 25, 2016

A movie about the psychological closet may be unfashionable, but Spa Night helps to better understand the depths of gay identity.

| Aug 22, 2016

An instant classic of Asian-American, gay...oh hell, just cinema. This ethnic and sexual immersion is as richly rewarding as it is quietly and impressively achieved.

| Aug 22, 2016

There's even a sense that not enough happens but the repression-a lot of glancing, no touching-feels right with the tone, and especially within the cultural context, of the film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2016

Even with its flaws, Spa Night is an extremely personal film. We need more of those.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 19, 2016

Beautifully executed, and marks an impressive debut from Ahn.

| Original Score: B | Aug 18, 2016

It would be easy to categorize this cool, exquisitely observant first feature by the Korean-American filmmaker Andrew Ahn as a gay movie. But it is much more.

| Aug 18, 2016

Together, Ahn and cinematographer Ki Jin Kim approach moments of sensuality subtly, as the camera languidly wades into the steamy saunas and the monochromatic showers where David's interest in the unknown begins to percolate.

| Aug 18, 2016

Though it's a shade too vague, Spa Night does a fine job of articulating the existential ennui of someone who loves his parents but knows he can never be what they were expecting.

| Original Score: B | Aug 17, 2016

There are no haters here, no bullies, and the only real enemy is the self-repression that plagues the shy, closeted Korean Angeleno teenager at its center.

| Aug 17, 2016

It recombines elements of the emigrant saga and the coming-of-age story into a searching, fresh-faced portrait.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 14, 2016