The comedic stylings of David Wain are more than just an acquired taste. There’s a singularity to his work, a strong sense of smart stupidity that make his most absurd films almost inaccessible on purpose. His most straight forward comedies are often completely love it or hate it with nearly 0 middle ground. Now, this doesn’t apply to everything; Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models feel like exceptions to his own rules. His latest outing is a return to form and has more in common with The Ten than the aforementioned films – a movie I enjoy quite a bit and should signal that I am, in fact, in the Wain club.
A Premise That Sounds Like a Joke (Because It Is)
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass sees Wain at his most audacious and silly, an irreverent riff on Wizard of Oz whose entire premise is summed up simply as a woman from a small town needs to have sex with Jon Hamm. Yes, really – that is the entire premise of Gail Daughtry. Wain uses the all-time classic as a foundational blueprint and then proceeds to run wild with as many ridiculous tangents as he possibly can. It is pure screwball comedy with a heavy dose specificity, tailored to what Wain finds funny and nothing else.
You’ll know 20 minutes in if Gail Daughtry and Wain’s comedy are for you. My screening was nearly sold out and my whole row left the theater in that amount of time. And for the rest of the film, it was me and one other guy in the front row laughing hysterically while the rest of the audience that chose not to leave sat in silence. That’s the kind of yellow brick road adventure that awaits you in Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass; the kind where most people will sit through going, “WTF is this?” while the select few get to enjoy a pure, laugh out loud comedy adventure.
A Twisted Trip Down the Yellow Brick Road
The plot is truly that simple. Zoey Deutch plays Gail Daughtry, a young hairdresser living in a small Midwest town engaged to her high school sweetheart. When her fiancé gets the opportunity to have sex with his celebrity pass Jennifer Aniston (who is playing herself and is very funny), Gail decides to travel to Los Angeles with her best friend and co-worker Otto (the Toto to her Dorothy) to even the score by having sex with Jon Hamm. Along the way she picks up a few friends who are all searching for something and fill out the crew. Ben Wang, Ken Marino, and John Slattery round out the Scarecrow, The Tinman and the Cowardly Lion stand ins, along with appearances from a who’s who of celebrity guest appearances.
Everyone Understands the Assignment
If you can get on board with the ridiculous premise and seemingly random collection of bits, Gail Daughtry is a comedic treat. Irreverent and knowingly stupid, Wain dives into every single joke with complete abandon. It functions more like a sketch comedy hour than a fully fleshed out feature, but every single person that makes an appearance is dialed into the wavelength Wain is operating on. Even characters who are playing themselves seem to get the material and what Wain is going for – particularly Slattery who is probably the funniest addition to the crew and perfectly encapsulates the self-deprecating Hollywood star past his prime and left clinging to his Mad Men success that has long since passed him by.
Big Laughs Over Big Ideas
It’s all hammed (no pun intended) up to 1000, delivering a barrage of raunchy, low brow jokes and cartoonish violence, often forgetting its premise and having no real interest in meaning or thematic resonance. But for those who don’t need their comedies to be anything other than that, Gail Daughtry is a hoot. Sure, there’s a middle school kind of humor that permeates the whole thing, but are we really so dead inside that we can’t just laugh at something that is purposefully dumb? We don’t have a lot of screwball comedies these days, particularly ones like Gail Daughtry that knows exactly what it is and what is finds funny. So when one as confidently mindless as this arrives, it’s a treat for those clamoring for it.
Gail Daughtry and Celebrity Sex Pass is brilliantly stupid, uninterested in doing anything other than making you laugh at the dumbest ideas you’ve ever seen and relishing in its own ridiculousness. It’s by no means perfect and heavily backloaded, the last half significantly funnier than the first half. When it’s not for you, Gail Daughtry is grating and insufferable, a low hanging fruit display of the most low brow, obvious joke to make in any situation. I can’t even fault anyone for walking out or turning it off. Wain has no desire to gain new fans but rather make something that he finds funny and hopes his people find it funny too.
Sometimes Dumb Is Exactly What You Need
And for me and the one guy the front row, Gail Daughtry and The Celebrity Sex Pass was a damn good time at the movies. Once that seal broke on the first laugh, it was a cascade of escalating laughter and had me throwing my hands up and just letting it all happen. Sometimes it’s okay to unclutch your pearls and just be stupid for 90 minutes.
I know I did, and I was rewarded for it. Now, how do I track down Anna De Armas?
