Plot: A male chauvinist finds himself in an alternate world where the social power dynamics between men and women are reversed.
Review: The lack of quality comedy movies on the big screen has been noticeable for quite some time. Most comedies, including romantic ones, have been relegated to streaming platforms for years, without the star power they once had. The new high-concept comedy Ladies First, starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike alongside an ensemble of talented actors, is yet another nail in the coffin for big-budget comedies. Taking elements of the Mel Gibson hit What Women Want and giving it an It’s A Wonderful Life twist, Ladies First gives us a world where the gender dynamic is completely reversed down to branding, advertising, and more. On paper, Ladies First may have seemed like a novel idea for exploring the male and female corporate and social hierarchy, but it ends up flat, unfunny, and an embarrassment for everyone involved.
Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Damien Sachs, the de facto successor to CEO Fred Powell (Charles Dance), head of a global marketing company. Sachs is a ladies’ man who takes women for granted and disregards any and all social graces, instead focusing on his own power and sexual desires. When a client forces him to have a woman on board their project, Damien promotes Alex Fox (Rosamund Pike) just to check the box. When she finds out and quits, Damien chases after her and hits his head. When Damien awakens, he is in an alternate reality where women are in charge, and men are the fairer sex. This includes Atlas, where Damien is now the junior employee, and Alex is the powerful heir to the CEO (Fiona Shaw). When a homeless man (Richard E. Grant) tells Damien he can get back to the real world if he fixes things, Damien sets out to become the head of Atlas, even with the gender dynamic against him.
Even before moving into the parallel world or whatever is going on, Ladies First sets up a very bland world of extremes where the men are all blatantly ignorant, uncaring, or empathetic. Once Damien awakens in his nightmare, Ladies First hits us over the head with groanworthy gender flips like restaurants called Burger Queen, a female Pope, Queen’s Cross station in London, and profanity like “fatherf*cker”. Men’s clothing now includes brasierres for testicles, and women enjoy red meat while their dates eat salads. Ladies First feels very much like every single stereotype and cliche you can think of about gendered anything was reversed, including novels like Harriet Potter and The Lady of the Rings. None of these jokes feels very clever or original. More subtle moments, like a woman rubbing against a man on the subway or catcalling men on the street, work far better to prove the point of how gross men can be towards women, without flipping every single element down to men now having cats as pets or only men would have healthy food in their refrigerators.
Rosamund Pike seems to have the most fun out of everyone in the cast, but her performance still feels reductive. At first, Alex Fox becomes emotional when she is promoted, and we see her as nothing more than a single mother who reluctantly stands up for what she believes in. In the alternate reality, Alex is as much of a chauvinist as Damien was, and Pike’s performance is basically a copycat of Sacha Baron Cohen‘s douchy Damien. Cohen, in a rare performance with no affected accent or elaborate costumes, phones it in with Damien, a very unlikable character, even when he eventually learns the error of his ways. Great actors like Fiona Shaw, Charles Dance, Kathryn Hunter, and Emily Mortimer all get to play the extreme versions of their normal and inverted gender dynamics, but it is so broad and silly that it is hard to believe any of them took on Ladies First as anything other than a paycheck.
Based on the 2018 French film I Am Not An Easy Man, Ladies First was written by Natalie Krinsky, Katie Silberman (Don’t Worry Darling), and Cinco Paul (Despicable Me). Director Thea Sharrock, who helmed the underrated comedy Wicked Little Letters and Disney’s The One and Only Ivan, does not have much to work with as the screenplay for Ladies First is so patently unfunny that she must do what she can with the acclaimed cast mugging for the camera. Multiple sex scenes are used to put Sacha Baron Cohen in striptease situations, but they just feel rote and without much energy behind them. Even the music used to highlight the movie, including “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”, feels so on the nose that I found myself groaning rather than laughing. Sharrock may be the first director who couldn’t turn a Sacha Baron Cohen performance into anything even a little funny, but there are very few moments of redemption, earned or otherwise, in this movie. You will know from the beginning exactly where this movie will end up.
Ladies First feels like a prime example of why we cannot have nice things. Studios and filmmakers pass on comedy movies more and more, and it is mediocre excuses for originality like this that we can blame. Ladies First wastes a phenomenal cast on a concept that could have been engaging and humorous, but instead opts for surface-level gags and a redemption arc that never rings true. Sacha Baron Cohen had more insightful things to say as Borat than anything in this movie. Ladies First is not only a waste of time but also undermines the actually important conversations about gender disparity that it could have done something to advance.
Ladies First is now streaming on Netflix.
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