David Wain's latest comedy, 'Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,' debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2026, earning praise for its antic satire of high-concept movies. Starring Zoey Deutch as a naive Kansas hairdresser chasing a celebrity encounter in Los Angeles, the film blends fish-out-of-water tropes with surreal absurdity. Reviewers highlight its affectionate nod to Hollywood clichés while delivering nonstop gags.
Directed by David Wain, known for spoofs like 'Wet Hot American Summer' in 2001 and 'They Came Together' in 2014, 'Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass' follows Gail Daughtry, played by Zoey Deutch. Gail, a wholesome hairdresser from Wilbur, Kansas, shares a celebrity sex pass with her fiancé, portrayed by Michael Cassidy. The plot kicks off when her fiancé uses his pass on Jennifer Aniston at a book signing, prompting Gail to head to Los Angeles for her own shot with Jon Hamm. Accompanied by her salon colleague Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), she navigates the city's underbelly, picking up allies like agent-in-training Caleb (Ben Wang) and a quirky John Slattery playing himself, who evolves from a down-on-his-luck actor to an unlikely hero. The story echoes 'The Wizard of Oz,' with Gail as the innocent Dorothy gathering a ragtag crew amid complications, including swapped suitcases with gangsters (Joe Lo Truglio and Mather Zickel) carrying a world-domination plot. Wain infuses the 93-minute film with exaggerated stereotypes, from a hostile-narrating mailman (Fred Melamed) to cameos by Weird Al as a gun enthusiast and Ken Marino as a tragic paparazzo named Vincent. A cab driver raves about Elizabeth Perkins, and a hotel clerk suggests visits to McDonald's, Starbucks, and a Foot Locker with illicit offers. Jon Hamm's personal assistant (Tobie Windham) issues dire warnings from the Chateau Marmont. As Variety notes, the movie is 'a high-concept movie that’s a parody of high-concept movies,' laced with 'flaky surreal dunked-in-media lunacy.' Produced by A Likely Story and Oval-5, with Anthony Bregman, Peter Cron, Ken Marino, David Wain, Crystine Zhang, and Charles Zhong as producers, the screenplay by Marino and Wain features cinematography by Kevin Atkinson, editing by John Daigle, and music by Craig Wedren. Despite its synthetic setup, the film succeeds in evoking laughs through its bold, meta absurdity, offering a nostalgic satire of a bygone Hollywood era.
