Screwball comedy delivers exuberant laughs
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is a tough movie to review because all its best bits–the wackiest, most laugh-out-loud, incredulous moments that I’d love to discuss–are best kept under wraps so viewers can revel in the surprises. So here’s a two second review: this film is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, in all the best ways. If you want a goofy, absurdist good time at the movies, go see this film.
The film’s plot hinges on an old relationship trope, one that the TV show Friends mined for laughs years ago in a memorable episode guest starring Isabella Rosselini. A “celebrity sex pass” for those who may have missed the memo, is a joke couples share: if one member of a couple were to ever meet their celebrity crush, the rule says, they get a free pass to have sex with their crush, no questions asked, and no dire consequences.
Comedy writers David Wain and Ken Marino (Wet Hot America Summer; Role Models) take that silly premise and turn it into one of the summer’s best comedies. Wain directs the film as well, eliciting charming, loose, and hilarious results from his game cast, all of whom seem like they’re having the time of their lives. Their enjoyment is so infectious that the audience is immediately invested and immersed in a plot both ridiculous and hilarious.
Gail (Zooey Deutch, Before I Fall; Everybody Wants Some), a perky midwestern hairdresser, is shocked when her fiance Tom (Michael Cassidy) takes advantage of his celebrity sex pass after a chance meeting with his celebrity crush (who I won’t reveal here–but trust me, you’ll be delighted). Thinking the best way to restore balance to her relationship is to redeem her own celebrity sex pass, Gail sets out on a quest to do just that. That the object of her freebie is Mad Men actor Jon Hamm is the ultimate in comic genius, as Hamm appears here as a heightened version of himself, in one of his best and funniest roles to date.
What follows is a sort of modern day Wizard of Oz knock off, as Kansan Gail heads to Hollywood with her friend and co-worker Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) and collects an assortment of oddball characters along the way, each with their own reason for wanting time with Hamm. Having Hamm’s Mad Men co-star John Slattery join Gail’s posse is just one of the film’s clever ideas. And because Wain and Marino (who also plays a struggling paparazzi photographer) seem to have an anything goes/the-crazier-the-better attitude for their screenplay, they throw in a crime boss, deliciously played by The White Lotus’s Sabrina Impacciatore, and her henchmen, who are hot on Gail and company’s tail, for reasons that make sense only because of the level of nuttiness they add to the already zany proceedings.
Along the way, the film manages to satirize nearly every well-known movie genre, from westerns to crime thrillers to horror to rom-coms. Wain and Marino clearly love movies, and they’ve stacked their film with so many playful cinematic Easter eggs and celebrity cameos that even the most casual cinema-goer will be impressed and thrilled. Yes, the story often feels cartoonish and unrealistic, but that isn’t a flaw here. It’s something to be celebrated, and heartily enjoyed.
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Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is currently playing, including at the AMC Metreon, Apple Cinemas Van Ness, Landmark Opera Plaza and Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco, the AMC Bay Street in Emeryville, and the Regal Hacienda Crossings in Dublin.
