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Men its attempt to be a one-stop shop for almost every kind of desire possible, Netflix now he has decided to revive the British comedy of the 2000s. Films such as Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Three and Out, Fat Slags and Lesbian Vampire Killers saw producers stand up to Hollywood and declare that whatever they do, the UK film industry can do 10 times worse.
The selection algorithm somehow felt it necessary to return to the cursed era with the release of Ladies First, a broad and brilliant comedy that would have felt old hat even earlier. It’s a very high-minded experiment, to think of a world with gender-changing politics, which is too interesting and supposedly fulfilling to be changed as a happy return. Like other mistakes that come to mind, it is also a waste of criminal talent, actors who were killed in the hope that they were better paid for the shame of their IMDb pages.
Chief among them is Rosamund Pike, the actress who gave one of the most terrifying performances of the 2010s in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, who deserves more than this. He is a good artist, something that cannot be said for his fellow players Sacha Baron Cohensurprisingly fit as Damien Sachs, the shy but promiscuous father of the town who learns the error of his ways (for his many faults, Mel Gibson was cast as the equivalent of the over-the-top patriarch of the film What Women Want). They don’t have the original charm or the bland, flimsy, confusing and deeply unappealing charm that makes for such a bad movie.
The film’s magical conceit sees Damien shake his head and wake up in a changed world, with women now on top and men struggling to keep up. Paul Smith is now Pauline, Harry Potter is now Harriet, bras are balls, Five Guys are Five Gals and Damien is now sexually harassed and completely disgusted with the little cog at the advertising agency where he was once the top dog. Pike was placed on a single mother Alex also went from friendly to powerful as he worked his way up the corporate ladder (Pike was damaged but felt like a badass). With help from Richard E Grant’s magical hobo, some humiliation and penile implantation, Damien must pick her up without a plan on his part.
It sits alongside some good “what if?” as funny as Amy Schumer’s car I feel goodlast year Good Luck is a middling rom-com spoof It’s not romantica film he shares with Ladies First co-writer Katie Silberman of Don’t Worry Darling. Often these fancies are ideas that sound brilliant at conventions but fall flat when dragged onto the screen with one joke stretched beyond its limits and world-building that feels silly. Despite being 84 minutes long, Ladies First is the worst example of this in recent memory, taking on a universally proven narrative (women are still underpaid and underpaid) hammers home the same point ad nauseam without anything clever or sharp to add. The sexism is real and the misogyny goes on and on but by painting a stereotypical picture of men and women and the office (the workplace ideals are lifted out of an 80’s kids movie), it becomes pointless repetition and a waste of everyone’s time. It’s a bitter joke (what if people did a young father instead of a mother, what if it was drama king instead of drama queen etc), you can almost hear the movie three the authors are Bad Small Letters director Thea Sharrock looks proudly to see if we’re laughing, ready to explain the film’s central idea if we’re not. The script is more about pointing things out casually (yes straight men do that, you’re right) than having anything funny to say about it.
I also remember a French comedy (red flag) that also has Netflix that feels like a fantasy because it’s like a viewer rebooting Love is Blind in another country, reusing the IP because. For some masochists, there may be a strange desire to see, say, Kathryn Hunter Drunkenly splitting the audience in a nightclub or Emily Mortimer riding up a storm or Fiona Shaw dancing to death while Baron Cohen dances with no punches, promising to spray her “full of lead” a valuable lesson. I learned a lesson here, but it was less about male chauvinism (badif you didn’t know) and more about comedy movies in 2026. No wonder everyone is nostalgic.
