By Ramona Flume

Jon Hamm is probably used to being told by adoring fans that he’s their celebrity crush or “hall pass.” It’s probably more of a rarity, however, for someone to hunt him down through the streets of Los Angeles in order to make that hypothetical a reality. But that’s the exact plot of the latest film from David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models, The Ten). 

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, screening in this year’s Premieres section, marks the fifth feature that Wain has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Raucous laughter was already ringing throughout a packed Eccles Theatre as fans of the cult comedy icon took their seats. 

In Wain’s pitch-perfect new madcap comedy, Zoey Deutch (Nouvelle Vague) positively radiates as Gail, a guileless hairstylist from Kansas who joins her best friend, Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) on an ambitious excursion to Hollywood to find Jon Hamm and get even with her fiancé who did the unthinkable by cashing in on his celebrity sex pass just days before their wedding. 

Gail is a red shoe–wearing Dorothy in this bizarro-world hat tip to The Wizard of Oz as she and Otto expand from a duo into a ragtag ensemble of well-meaning helpers on an X-rated hunt for Hamm. Gail’s clueless cohort includes the film’s co-writer, Ken Marino (Party Down, Wet Hot American Summer), who plays a misfiring paparazzo, and Mad Men star John Slattery, who makes an unforgettable turn as himself, while Sabrina Impacciatore (The White Lotus) serves as a wicked witch stand-in, unleashing a set of sinister but hapless minions who stay close on Gail’s heels throughout her epic quest. 

Wild celebrity cameos weren’t the only thing causing the gut-wrenching laughs that reverberated throughout the Eccles Theatre on January 25. Wain’s signature style of absurdist, irreverent, and downright silly humor was hitting on all cylinders.

“I think we all needed that tonight,” Festival director Eugene Hernandez says as he opens the post-premiere Q&A discussion. The audience erupted with applause and cheers as he welcomed the film’s cast onstage, a mix of long-time Wain and Marino troupe members from The State days (Joe Lo Truglio, Mather Zickel, Kerri Kenney-Silver) and first-time collaborators (Ben Wang, Tobie Windham, Gutierrez-Riley). 

In between onstage ribbing, in-jokes, and off-mic laughs, each cast member gushed about the collaborative experience. “Making movies with your friends is just a privilege,” Truglio (The State, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) says. “And then to have people like Sabrina and John and Tobie, people that haven’t worked with us, that are just so open and ready to play and be silly with us — it’s a testament to them, and David and Ken, who make it a safe, silly environment because it’s hard to be an idiot when people are looking at you funny.” 

“We discovered, early on, first starting with Wet Hot American Summer, this magical thing of combining our core group of best friends that we’ve worked with since college,” Wain says. “And mixing in with other newer people (to us) who are outwardly not known for doing this particular kind of comedy. … Mixing all of that into an ensemble is a beautiful alchemy. That’s what this is all about.” 

There was a feeling the cast could have stayed onstage laughing and answering audience questions all night, but time was running out. “I just had one little tidbit I wanted to say,” Wain hurries to add as the Q&A wraps up. “The first time I was ever aware of the Festival that would be Sundance, was in reading the Steven Soderbergh book about sex, lies, and videotape, which is one of my all time favorite movies. He’s one of my great heroes.” 

Wain goes on to admit he overtly stole two shots from that iconic 1989 Sundance Film Festival selection and used them in a sex scene in Gail. “That orgasm, that falling back onto the pillow … are from that movie,” Wain says. “As a tribute to Sundance.”