I need to learn a lesson… stay the heck off Letterboxd before I see a movie. Other critics’ opinions don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I was super glad I unconsciously listened to this rule before watching Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. Let me shoot straight here. My Letterboxd connections were… harsh. We’re talking one- and two-star ratings. 

I don’t think we saw the same movie.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, as its slightly clunky and overly long title implies, is a weird, little delight of a sex comedy. Is this rapid-fire comedy a quirky take-off on The Wizard of Oz? Well, co-star Jon Hamm is (seemingly) “The Wizard” while John Slattery steals the show as what I can only describe as a take-off on the “Cowardly Lion”. 

This is all packaged in a story featuring the titular Gail (Zoey Deutch) as a young woman who leaves her tiny Kansas town for the lights of Hollywood after her fiancé (Michael Cassidy) sleeps with his “Celebrity Pass”. Gail travels to Tinseltown for one reason and one alone: she must sleep with her own “Celebrity Pass” to even the score. However, she’s not going to find Jon Hamm on her own. Gail needs the help of her own “Scarecrow” (Ben Wang), “Tin Man” (Ken Marino), as well as John Slattery. That must mean Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) is Gail’s “Toto”. I keep trying to figure out who her “Glinda” is, though… but I digress. Friends, I had a lot of fun with this weird little metaphor. David Wain directs the film from a script he co-wrote with Ken Marino.

This is a movie that’s nerve-wrackingly reliant on its talented cast. Kids, I want to see this film’s screenplay. I need to see how some of this dialogue looked on paper. It’s fast, punchy, and super easy to go off the rails if anything goes wrong. 

Wain and Marino catch lightning in a bottle with this ensemble, each of whom is fully clued into the creative vision. They understand the tone and the pace. Each instinctively knows how to deliver these often tricky lines. My theater audience was in stitches, but with one person different, things could have easily gone another painfully unfunny direction. 

I took a bit to warm up to Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. I’ll admit it, I was a little worried as things started out. The film’s first act takes place in Kansas as we learn about Gail and her fiancé’s dalliance with Jennifer Aniston (not a spoiler!). The sequence is so sweet, so homespun and so saccharine that it’s difficult even to believe characters like this exist in 2026. No one in this day and age is so utterly innocent… even in Kansas. 

Once the story shifts to Hollywood, though, the movie fully and completely finds its voice. This becomes a fish-out-of-water story rather than the awkward Midwestern character examination of the first act. 

I must bow to John Slattery, who steals this film like a bandit. This “meta,” very “inside baseball” role is a delight. Slattery is, of course, always great. His Howard Stark? Perfection. His Roger Sterling? Genius. His “John Slattery?” Impeccable. 

His performance this time out brings a winking and chaotic sense of joy that this movie definitely needs. It’s actually a very courageous performance because he’s playing a man who is, essentially, a fictional version of himself. This man is a quirky, desperate portrayal of a certain kind of failed TV star, but Slattery’s inherent charisma shines in the portrayal. 

Delightfully, Jon Hamm taps into a similar charismatic courage to tackle this part. I was a Mad Men watcher throughout the show’s run (are you surprised?), but I am loving the new “funny” Jon Hamm that we’ve been seeing over the last few years. He has a pitch perfect sense of timing and knowing eye for his own star persona that helps carry the film. His ability to play off John Slattery? A thing of beauty.

Will I be in the minority with this movie that gave me a tremendous sense of joy? We shall see. However, I can say that if I’d seen some of those reviews before I watched Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, I would not have been so ready to accept the weirdness. You heard that right, this film critic is saying you should go into a movie with an open mind. Give the quirky ones a chance. You never know what you might find.