Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, directed by David Wain, will screen at the Tribeca Festival on June 10 and open in theaters on July 10. The film centers on Gail Daughtry, a small-town hairdresser played by Zoey Deutch, who makes a sensational choice after her fiancé betrays her.
Deutch’s Gail is engaged to her high school sweetheart, Tom, until Tom meets and sleeps with his own celebrity pass after a trip to a book signing. That betrayal propels Gail out of her small town and into Los Angeles, where she aims to answer one question with action: if Tom used a celebrity hall pass, why shouldn’t she?
The film’s weight rests on that premise and one specific target: Gail sets her sights on Jon Hamm. A psychic convinces Gail that the only way to save her impending marriage is to "even the scales," and what follows is a comic chase across the city. Gail and her friend Otto travel to Los Angeles and team up with a talent agency assistant and a paparazzo as they pursue Hamm through the kind of celebrity terrain the plot lampoons.
David Wain directed the picture and co-wrote the script with Ken Marino. Zoey Deutch stars as Gail Daughtry; the project was written before its Tribeca screening and arrives on the festival schedule as its first major public showing on June 10, with a wide opening set for July 10.
That context matters because the film is built explicitly around the idea of a celebrity hall pass — a premise meant to turn the conventions of infidelity and celebrity gossip into comedy. Placing a recognizable star like Jon Hamm at the center of Gail’s scheme gives the movie a clear pressure point: the private pain of a betrayed small-town woman meets the public spectacle of chasing a film star through Los Angeles.
The picture keeps its comic engine simple and relentless. Gail’s plan is not solitary: the pursuit involves a rotating, unlikely crew that includes a friend from home, industry insiders and the kind of freelance photographers who follow celebrity leads. The setup lets the film move through the city and through situations that force Gail to confront what she really wants from her marriage and from the idea of justice.
The tension in the story comes from that collision. Gail believes matching Tom’s infidelity will restore balance; the film asks whether revenge framed as equal offense is a cure or merely a new spectacle. Turning Jon Hamm into the object of that scheme makes the movie literal about celebrity as both commodity and scapegoat — a device that can be played for laughs but that also complicates any tidy moral resolution.
Wain and Marino wrote the film before its festival debut, and the decision to premiere at Tribeca places that moral experiment directly in front of early audiences. The Tribeca screening on June 10 will be the first place viewers see how the script’s bone-dry logic and broad comic set pieces land when they meet a crowd. Two weeks later, when the film opens July 10, theater audiences will get the same question with a larger spotlight: does turning a real-name star into the target of a revenge plot pay off as comedy or simply replicate the celebrity frenzy it aims to satirize?
The straightforward answer the film offers is embedded in its premise: Jon Hamm functions as the cinematic object of Gail’s campaign, and his presence is the device by which the movie tests its central joke and its emotional stakes. Audiences will be able to judge that test for themselves at the Tribeca Festival on June 10 and when the film opens in theaters on July 10.
