'Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass'-Charming Yet Weary
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass’s jokes are as overstretched as its title. Despite being very short, the movie still feels like it’s too long, thanks to its gags that are in dire need of a better editor. If comedy is all about timing, then please refer to this flick among the landfill of mediocre comedies to choose from as an example of why you should cut your jokes. A joke is only funny for a short amount of time; then you must move on. Don't linger on the same gag, hoping that expanding it will make it funnier. It won’t. All it does is make you look sad and desperate for a laugh.
In fairness, comedy is the toughest category to nail. Not only do you have to make your audience laugh for at least 88 minutes, but they must do so consistently. If there are 10 minutes of dud jokes in your flick, then it’s dead in the water. Audiences have a visceral disdain for comedies they don’t find universally funny. It’s like reacting to the trailer from Jack & Jill or Movie 47. Not only do people find those movies unfunny, but they actively hate comedies like them. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass isn’t a terrible comedy like those movies. However, it suffers from morbid mediocrity, rendering the movie a memory that will be lost in the valley of forgotten thoughts minutes after viewing. There’s a very awkward, try-hard attitude in Celebrity Sex Pass that makes it more cringy than funny. Not enough folks take notes from David Zucker's comedies, which have actors play the material straight instead of silly. The characters in Airplane! and Naked Gun act as seriously as possible in the most bizarre situations. They’re not in on the joke, while the audience is.
Compare that to 90% of every comedy where the actors overemphasize every single line so they can squeeze out a laugh like a dried orange. It’s more cringy than funny. There’s a kind spirit in the film. It doesn’t hinder its humor with shock value or hateful jokes. But the jokes are inadequately timed or conceived. Throwaway dumb lines are funny, but they have to work within the context of the joke. During one scene, Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch) checks into a hotel in LA. The desk clerk randomly then informs Gail and her gay BFF, Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), that they could get sexual services in a nearby alley. It makes it abundantly clear that the director and screenwriter want to score a laugh, yet they don’t know how to earn it.
That isn’t to say there aren’t instances where the film does earn a couple of chuckles. There’s a narrator of the film who has a Happy Madison Production vibe. The gag does work for one instance where the film mocks the fact that it’s breaking the 4th wall. But then it doesn’t know where to cut, as the joke adds an extra unnecessary layer to the punchline. Still, before the moment went on for too long, it earned a good laugh. Also, the intentionally throwaway “since my parents' murder suicide” line was great. There are glimmers of good jokes trapped within a comedy that’s too tonally self-aware for its own good.
The premise is funny, yet the delivery is stale. Gail is on the eve of being married. The two allow for one cheating pass with a celebrity. Unfortunately for Gail, her fiancé uses that pass on his favorite celebrity well in advance. To even the score and potentially save their relationship, Gail seeks to romance Jon Hamm. With the help of Otto, Gail leaves her lifelong cocoon in a midwestern small town to go to Hollywood. Along the way, she runs into strangers who become friends in her sex quest.
Each cast member has their charm. There’s the paparazzi who was once an aspiring screenwriter. The young, ambitious Hollywood intern who doesn’t understand the world outside of his mom’s comfort zone, and John Slattery, once a co-star of Mr. Hamm, is now a broke nobody. There’s a dimension to the characters, where each of them has their underdog roots placed within a comedic underdog’s story.
There’s a whole subplot involving the Italian mafia where Gail’s briefcase got mixed up with a mob boss’s case as well. It adds to the plot, yet it could also be trimmed. It seems the movie is trying to say something about celebrity worship, as personified by Ben Wang’s delusional character, yet it regresses into more star-gazing than anything meaningful. The picture’s theme is unclear. Perhaps it’s about the importance of exploring the world. That certainly would be easy when you have a famous celebrity by your bedside. Although the picture has its moments, Ms. Daughtry’s celebrity sex pass is just too lame to pass the feature film laugh test.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass opens in theaters on July 10.
