Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass Review: Zoey Deutch Leads a Sprawling Cast in One of 2026’s Best Comedy Movies

It’s been nearly a decade since David Wain directed a feature-length film, and even longer since he’s made one that feels genuinely noteworthy, so I’ll just say that the industry needed him to come back with a strong movie. The studio comedy has felt like it’s been on life support for most of this decade, increasingly replaced by other genres and franchises that have siphoned off some of the classical comedy beats and repurposed them for their own various reasons. The MCU and other major franchises becoming increasingly winking and meta, along with the surge of horror comedies following the strong Scream reboot run (minus Scream 7, which sucked), has made it harder for comedy stars to break through in the same way Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, and others were able to translate their comedic sensibilities to the big screen and build lengthy careers around them. And television hasn’t exactly helped, with streaming comedies like Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Abbott Elementary, and countless others giving audiences their comedy fix while also borrowing many of the great comedians of this century.

The best comedies of the decade have often been the ones evolving the genre in some way, whether through form, like Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie turning a mockumentary into a Back to the Future riff, or through filmmakers like Sean Baker and Paul Thomas Anderson pushing their particular comedic sensibilities into the prestige space and eventually overtaking the Oscars with Anora and One Battle After Another. But those aren’t quite the same flavor as the classic studio comedy, and the closest recent example I can think of is probably The Naked Gun reboot, which pains me to admit I just didn’t find very funny. So it’s a particularly welcome surprise that David Wain is back with Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, and an even greater surprise that I thought this was really fun and, most importantly, really funny.

The movie gets off to a great start simply by having a cast willing to play along with its wonderfully delirious premise. The titular Gail Daughtry, played by Zoey Deutch, is about to marry the love of her life and high school sweetheart Tom, a guy who looks enough like Paul Rudd that I kept wondering if there was some elaborate cloning situation going on (which the movie gives a great payoff to in its final scenes). During an innocent conversation about their respective celebrity sex passes – the one celebrity each could theoretically sleep with without the other getting mad – Tom initially picks Tilda Swinton before changing his answer to Jennifer Aniston after randomly meeting the Friends megastar at a book signing. Of course, this is all just hypothetical. Neither of them would actually follow through with it. Or at least that’s what Gail assumes until she walks in on Tom with Jennifer Aniston. Distraught and unable to move past what happened, Gail decides she can’t marry him anymore. Unless, of course, she can even the score by exercising her own celebrity sex pass: the one and only Jon Hamm.

So, while on a work trip in Los Angeles, Gail sets out to track down Jon Hamm by basically any means necessary. What ensues loosely follows the Wizard of Oz formula, with Gail picking up a ragtag group of weirdos along the way before eventually making her way toward the famed Mad Men leading man. There’s paparazzi photographers, CAA front-desk workers, former Jon Hamm co-stars, and various other Hollywood-adjacent characters who all become part of this increasingly ridiculous quest. And that’s really where Wain’s sensibility shines through. The movie understands that the premise is inherently stupid, so instead of trying to make it more respectable, it just keeps finding increasingly funny ways to commit to the stupidity.

Deutch is perfect for it, bringing exactly the right combination of sincerity and escalating desperation, while Miles Gutierrez-Riley is great as her hairstyling co-worker. Ken Marino gets to be a paparazzi photographer who’s spent years trying and failing to get Jon Hamm on camera, and John Slattery essentially gets to play a heightened version of John Slattery, delivering some of the film’s best running jokes through his self-deprecating reflections on how he never received the same level of success or recognition from Mad Men as Hamm did.

Ben Wang was probably my favorite of the expanded cast. Every line and every delivery is so funny, and he fully commits to playing this young guy who’s willing to do basically anything to make a name for himself and escape his receptionist job at a talent agency. He’s fired early in the movie and desperately needs a recommendation from Jon Hamm to get the job back, which gives him just enough motivation to become completely invested in Gail’s increasingly insane mission. He’s also desperate to make friends. Wang has this great ability to play the character as both incredibly earnest and completely ridiculous, and the movie keeps giving him little moments to steal scenes from everyone around him.

There’s also a subplot involving a group of criminals who want to crush the world’s economic ecosystem, which is silly and feels like it was ripped straight out of an entirely different movie. Weirdly, I think that actually helps Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass more than it hurts it, because the movie is so committed to its own Hollywood logic that even this completely unnecessary B-plot eventually folds back into the central joke. The events become the basis for a movie being pitched to Jon Hamm, giving David Wain and the cast an excuse to stage a couple of rowdy shootouts and chase sequences along the way. It’s still fundamentally an adventure comedy, but those little bursts of action give the movie a bit of extra energy and keep it from feeling like the entire thing is just a series of celebrity cameos and Hollywood jokes.

What I really appreciated is how unapologetically old-school this feels. It’s not trying to turn itself into a superhero movie, a horror movie, or some prestige dramedy with comedy sprinkled around the edges. It’s just a studio comedy built around a completely ridiculous premise, a cast that understands exactly what kind of movie they’re in, and a script that keeps finding new ways to make the joke work. Wain clearly understands this particular flavor of comedy, and after nearly ten years away from feature directing, it feels especially nice to see someone come back and remind you how effective this kind of movie can be when everyone is pulling in the same direction.

I had a really great time with Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. It’s one of the very best comedies I’ve seen this decade, and while I don’t know if every individual joke is going to stick with me forever, the sheer consistency of the comedic performances and the genius of the central premise carried me through almost everything. Zoey Deutch is fantastic, Ben Wang is hilarious, the supporting cast is stacked, and David Wain clearly came back with something to prove. In a decade where the traditional studio comedy has increasingly felt like a dying breed, I’m just happy to see one this stupid, this committed, and this genuinely funny make it to the big screen.