Gail Daughtry finds good Friends

Before a 1996 episode of Friends, the movie title Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass might have confused potential viewers.  But one Friends gag featured the quote “Freebie List,” an agreed-upon selection of famous people you can sleep with and not upset your partner. Director David Wain, co-writing with Ken Marino, expands that idea into a feature film that runs with slapdash humor styles and various in-jokes for a comedy in the tradition of Airplane!, often hit-and-miss and generally cruder. In-joke Number 1 comes at a small Kansas town when Gail and her fiancé laugh over the concept of a celebrity pass—only he takes it for real when an author shows up for a cookbook signing in town—Jennifer Aniston of Friends.  Highly displeased, Gail takes off for a convention in southern California, where she realizes that payback might cure her frustration. This puts her on a path to find her own Celebrity Pass dude, Jon Hamm, the square-jawed lead from Mad Men. Like Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz, this Gail also wears red shoes and picks up a group of flawed helpers as she seeks magical powers from a regional star.  The whole Wizard of Oz routine works as an underlying joke, enhanced when Hamm’s Mad Men co-star John Slattery joins the hunt, spearheading a splattery showdown at a movie ranch. Dorothy Gale never found so much blood—or sex for that matter—but this Gail wallows in the romp, portrayed by Zoey Deutch as a wide-eyed innocent whose bright smile reflects an open-minded enthusiasm for new experiences. That magnetic smile looks like making the movie felt like a frolic rather than work, a sense of fun passed on to viewers.