LADIES FIRST

(director/writer: Thea Sharrock; screenwriters: Cino Paul, Katie Silberman, Natalie Krinsky; cinematographer: Haris Zambarloukos; editor: Mark Everson; music: Atli Örvarsson; cast: Sacha Baron Cohen (Damien Sachs),  Rosamund Pike (Alex Fox), Tom Davis (Chris Black), Emily Mortimer (Sunny Black), Richard E. Grant (Pigeon Man), Charles Dance (Fred Powell), Fiona Shaw (Felicity Chase), Weruche Opia (Ruby), Kathryn Hunter (Glenda Cartwright), Kadiff Kirwan (Austin), Bill Paterson (Louis); Runtime: 93; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Liza Chasin, Eleonore Dailly, Edouard de Lachomette; Netflix; 2026)

“Toxic masculinity is given the business in this harmless one-joke farce.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
 
The Brit comedy is a one-joke remake of the French comedy I’m Not An Easy Man (2018). It’s weakly directed by Thea Sharrock (“Wicked Little Letters”/”Me Before You”) as a badly dated battle-of-sexes comedy. She co-writes it with Cino Paul, Katie Silberman, and Natalie Krinsky. Most of the gags are forced.

The asshole chauvinist ad agency head in London, Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen), is ordered by his mentor boss Fred Powell (Charles Dance) to promote Alex Fox (Rosamund Pike), a woman who has been with him for 20 years, to be an executive. He resents doing it but complies.

Initially happy she’s soon dismayed when realizing the promotion is only a token sign that the times are changing, and quits in disgust.

Damien gets knocked unconscious when he walks into a street post and wakes up to find himself in a dream-world where women are running things, with Alex taking his CEO job and him living in his parent’s place without a job.

Damien meets the Pigeon Man (Richard E. Grant), who tells him when he gets back his job as head of the agency, things will get better.

Toxic masculinity is given the business in this harmless farce that tells us nothing new, is awkwardly filmed and its slimy jokes are for an earlier time.

REVIEWED ON 5/24/2026  GRADE: C-
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