Running Time: 94 minutes
This feature from Sony Pictures Classics will open exclusively at cinemas in Albuquerque, New Mexico and other markets.
In case you haven’t noticed, it has been a bit of a sorry state for comedy films in the past few years. Of course, they’re still being made (mostly through independent studios or on direct-to -streaming services), but Hollywood hasn’t been embracing them as much in recent years. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is an attempt to right that wrong. It’s an unabashedly ridiculous, raucous and over-the-top R-rated comedy that desperately wants to make you laugh any way it can. But does it actually succeed in generating laughs?
Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch) is a Kansas-based hairdresser who has never left her home state and seems content to permanently stay in her small town. In fact, she is two weeks away from marrying her fiancé Tom (Michael Cassidy) and seems to have fully plotted out the rest of her suburban life. During one conversation with Tom, the two lightheartedly joke about having a “Celebrity Sex Pass”, a famous person whom they would be allowed to sleep with if they ever got the chance. But things change dramatically when Tom actually uses the privilege. Gail decides to accompany her coworker Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) to a hairdressing convention in Los Angeles, wanting a bit of space to process the development. After discussing the matter with others, she decides to even the score by tracking down her own pick, actor and Mad Men star Jon Hamm. Over the course of their brief stay, Gail and Otto try to track Hamm down, encountering Hollywood celebrities, agents, and a criminal conspiracy along the way.
Director/co-writer David Wain is a comedy veteran with several titles under his belt like Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models and Wanderlust. The approach and tone of humor is in many ways similar to those films, and thus this effort picture has a throwback feel (all the Wain features noted are shocking now roughly 15 or more years old). While Gail understandably wants to get even with her fiancé by having a one-night stand, most of the loose story ends up following the plucky heroine/fish-out-of-water moving from one bizarre scenario to the next.
The supporting cast of eccentric Hollywood types (and, believe it or not, mobsters), are all funny to watch. This includes actor John Slattery, playing a down-but-not-quite-out version of himself. Out of work, angry and desperate to reconnect with co-star Hamm, he actually becomes a major character in the story. Ben Wang also stands out as Caleb, a junior employee with Hamm’s talent management group who understands Gail’s plight and amusingly sees it as a way to prove himself as a mover and shaker to his at the agency. Of course, nothing goes as planned and every new idea ends up going off the rails amusingly. But truth be told, the film’s funniest bits involve non-sequiturs, as the group members ramble at length on increasingly ludicrous tangents about their troubled pasts.
While they’re sharing silly tales of surreal personal trauma, the film also interjects dangerous mobsters (including Sabrina Impacciatore, Joe La Truglio), who veer between being incredibly violent, incompetent, and at times just plain lazy as they hunt down the protagonists. Being a movie about Hollywood and celebrity culture, there are so many cameos in the picture that it’s pointless to even go into them all (many of whom director Wain has worked with in earlier titles). And most of it works here, resulting in a lot of unexpected and entertaining interactions.
Everything is played to outrageous levels and the jokes come fast and furious. Naturally, it seems that there must have been a lot of improvisation on-set, which does mean that the story can naturally meander, and not every gag kills. But at least it generally moves at a quick clip and pushes forward before confessions and observations become tiring.
In all, the wonderful cast’s constant back-and-forth banter largely works. The weird behavior, big-name cameos, and unwieldy and chaotic yet amusingly unpredictable narrative, means that more of the jokes land than one might initially expect. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass may not be a comedy classic, but it is a good time, and actually made me realize how much I miss days of much sillier fare at the local movie theater.
