Some films aim to change your life; others want to make you laugh until you’re red in the face. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass knows exactly which type it is. David Wain’s latest is a lively, crude, and unapologetically silly comedy that seeks belly laughs over deep insights. It succeeds on that front, and that front only.
I watched Gail Daughtry at the Ray Theatre on Sundance’s last day, during a Local Lens screening, after it premiered out of competition. This screening felt like group therapy for festival-goers eager to finish the festival’s last iteration in Utah on a high note. Perhaps that’s the best way to enjoy Wain’s film: with people who, like you, appreciate a genuinely funny comedy that is, in no way, attempting to show off how smart it is.
Zoey Deutch stars as Gail Daughtry, a sweet but wide-eyed Midwestern hairdresser. Her life unravels when her fiancé, Tom (Michael Cassidy), takes his “celebrity sex pass” joke too far – with Jennifer Aniston. (A side note to comment on how hilarious Aniston is reading from her new cookbook at an event). Heartbroken, Gail joins her best friend and fellow hairdresser Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) on his trip to an Expo in Los Angeles. It’s there that she decides to even the score and sleep with her own hall pass: Jon Hamm.
Let’s get this out of the way: Gail Daughtry is a parody of The Wizard of Oz (1939), and it nods to this great Hollywood fantasy movie more times than a bobblehead on a dashboard. Gail Daughtry is Dorothy Gale, and Otto is – have you guessed it? – Toto. She wears only rouge footwear, and instead of a quest to find the Wizard in the Emerald City to go home, she is in the A-list City of Angels, clicking her heels to go Hamm.
Throughout her journey, Gail meets a loveable, yet brainless, scarecrow-esque CAA agent-wannabe Caleb (Ben Wang) and a paparazzi old-timer seeking an elusive photo of Jon Hamm Vincent (Ken Marino). David Wain and Ken Marino’s collaborations go back to the early 1990s, when they were both part of a sketch comedy troupe called The State. They are both responsible for the Gail Daughtry screenplay.
Rounding out the main ragtag cast is a down-on-his-luck John Slattery, playing a hilariously cowardly version of himself. His appearance vastly increases the chances that Jon Hamm will appear, but whether or not Deutch’s Gail seals the deal is yet to be determined.
There’s a line-up of fantastic comedy stars in Gail Daughtry. Sabrina Impacciatore (The White Lotus, The Paper) is perfectly cast as this retelling’s Wicked Witch of the West, and Joe Lo Truglio is a perfect henchman/flying monkey. There is a suitcase of secrets used as a MacGuffin, which is a little too played out and convenient. Only a film that literally could not care how clever it is would try to get away with a plot device so eye-roll worthy.
Look out for other cameos from “Weird Al” Yankovic, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, and, of course, Elizabeth Perkins. Thomas Lennon and Michael Ian Black from Wain and Marino’s Wet Hot American Summer (2001) also make appearances, and one is harder to miss than the other.
Wain and Marino aren’t just parodying Oz; they’re using it as an easy backdrop in which to play out their uninhibited, spirited ideas. Each scene is a new opportunity for comedic chaos. Some jokes hit, some miss, but the sky-high success rate more than makes up for any failures.
Deutch’s sincerity and warmth anchor the chaos. She’s truly excellent – a natural comedian who dives into slapstick with the enthusiasm of a young Goldie Hawn. Her Gail is genuinely likeable. Even when shes running around in her sensible underwear or sporting a ridiculous hairstyle, you can tell she’s in on the fun, and probably revelling in the opportunity to be sexy and funny.
Yes, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Tape is shallow. And, in other news, grass is green. There are very few morals or profundities the movie tries to push; it just wants to entertain you for 93 minutes. If there’s any opportunity for a laugh, even if it’s just Fred Melamed’s mailman/narrator looking at the camera through a mailbox, Gail Daughty takes it.
However, if I may put forward one caveat – this movie is about a young woman, in a relationship, who wants to get railed by a celebrity. Not once is she slut-shamed or made to feel like this pursuit is delusional. She tells everyone she meets on her quest in LA, and they essentially respond with, ‘Sure, Gail. Why not?’ Personally, I love that this movie champions young hetero women not marrying the boy who escorted them to prom. At its heart (and it does have one), Gail Daughtry is about stepping outside your everyday life and being open to new adventures. No, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
The Wizard of Oz blueprint allows Wain to play with tone, music, and colour. The production design is an amusing treat. Yellow-brick-road motifs hidden in LA crosswalks, sparkly lighting, and some literal references to emeralds, rainbows, and tornadoes. Cinematographer Yaron Orbach captures everything with a bright, dreamy style that has the aesthetics of an early 2000s music video, which fits the film’s colourful sense of humour perfectly.
Is Gail Daughtry inconsistent? Sure. Some sketches linger too long, and the crime plot sometimes feels shoehorned. Even with a tight runtime, some scenes feel like padding. But there is something infectious about a movie where it seems like everyone in the cast was having a great time, and everyone in the audience is too.
