By Jorge Ignacio Castillo

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (USA, 2026. Dir: David Wain): Thanks to the success of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s The Studio, the Hollywood satire is having a bit of a moment. But it’s an unearned one.

The dirty little secret about the Apple TV+ series that ransacked the Emmys last year is that it's more self-congratulatory than self-effacing. Beyond outlandish gags like portraying the widely beloved Ron Howard as an egomaniacal monster, The Studio is blander than boiled cabbage. You won't see the sitcom lampooning Howard for glorifying JD Vance's upbringing in Hillbilly Elegy, or tackling hot-button issues such as big-budget productions fleeing Hollywood or the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, fueled in no small part by the steady influx of aspiring actors chasing stardom.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass belongs very much in this camp. An amiable, if not particularly sharp, comedy from The State veterans David Wain and Ken Marino, Gail Daughtry follows The Wizard of Oz blueprint almost beat for beat, down to Dorothy's faithful companion—an affable, adventurous terrier in the original, an affable, adventurous hairdresser in this spoof.

The aforementioned Gail (Zoey Deutch, Why Him?) is a stylist from —where else?— Kansas who is about to marry her high school sweetheart. The couple’s plans hit a snag when the would-be groom has sex with his celebrity free pass (is this really a thing?). To even the playing field, Gail heads to Los Angeles with the goal of sleeping with her own celebrity crush: Mad Men star Jon Hamm.

In her quest, she's joined by an inept junior agent (Ben Wang), a failed paparazzo (Marino), and a past-his-prime actor (John Slattery gleefully roasting himself), all while fending off a gangster and her henchmen after inadvertently crossing them.

If this description gives you the impression that Gail Daughtry (Do-ro-thy, get it?) and the Celebrity Sex Pass is essentially one joke stretched to feature length, you'd be right. The Hollywood send-ups and the ill-advised organized crime subplot —clearly included to shoehorn a "Wicked Witch" into the narrative— fail to add much substance.

Despite playing the title character, Zoey Deutch is frequently sidelined in favor of her funnier co-stars, none more entertaining than John Slattery. While Slattery's post-Mad Men career has featured plenty of highlights (Spotlight, Nuremberg, and his recurring turn as Howard Stark in the MCU), Gail Daughtry imagines him as a washed-up actor who can't even land a guest spot on a procedural, simultaneously admiring and resenting Jon Hamm for going supernova.

Director David Wain and screenwriter Ken Marino deserve some credit for delivering a well-rounded —if exceedingly mild— comedy. It may be faint praise, but compared to disjointed romps like Scary Movie or genre hybrids too embarrassed to call themselves comedies, Gail Daughtry knows exactly what it is and sticks to its guns. The result is a pleasant, if ultimately forgettable, diversion. ★★½☆☆

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is now playing everywhere.