Some films come with an impressive cast, promising premise and such accomplished names behind the camera that you automatically settle in with expectations. But 93 minutes later, you wonder why you willingly sacrificed your sanity to something so painfully hollow. That is the case with Ladies First, streaming on Netflix.
Directed by Thea Sharrock, the comedy stars Sacha Baron Cohen as Damien Sachs, an arrogant advertising executive and proud misogynist, alongside Rosamund Pike as Alex Fox, a creative director constantly sidelined in a male-dominated corporate world. With names like Richard E. Grant, Emily Mortimer, Charles Dance and Fiona Shaw, the film had all the ingredients to become a sharp satirical comedy about gender politics in the workplace. Instead, it turns into a bland, outdated, cartoonish mess.
The beginning of the film has a line: “As we know, in this world, it is often the very worst people who seem to have it all.” That opening almost tricks you into believing something clever is about to unfold. We are introduced to Damien, a smug, sexist man who treats women as props. The film abounds in stereotypes — male gaze, dismissive boardroom behaviour, casual sexism and jokes like: “Is it that time of the month?”. Alex is barely heard in meetings filled with men discussing campaigns targeted at women.
Ladies First desperately wants to be outrageous and satirical. You keep waiting for that moment when the film finally clicks, when it finally becomes sharp, funny or emotionally intelligent. But it never arrives. After Alex overhears Damien admitting he never bothered looking at her presentation and only promoted another woman for appearances, she quits. Damien suffers a random concussion while running after Alex and wakes up in a parallel matriarchal world (because apparently the only way men can finally recognise the “second sex” as equals is after suffering a conveniently life-altering concussion). It is basically an upside-down world — ‘strang(er) things’ are happening to Damien, literally. The concept is simple: what if women behaved exactly like men in a patriarchal society? Harry Potter becomes Harriet Potter. And in this world, we have a boy in the Pearl Earring. Men are objectified. The lonely woman-with-cats stereotype becomes about lonely men. The Pope is a woman. The male CEO becomes a domestic help while a female cleaner becomes a board member. And Alex is in Damien’s position in the same company.
There is something undeniably compelling about watching Pike play powerful women. But the film never truly uses her and collapses under the weight of its own shallow imagination. Ladies First flips the power dynamic without adding any depth. Ironically, it almost supports the tired misunderstanding that feminism is about putting women above men, rather than equality.
Not every film has to solve societal problems. Not every comedy needs to become profound. But if an entire story is built around gender dynamics with a “comedy” tag, then one can expect it to be sharp, funny, or emotionally convincing. But here, the storytelling is poor and the satire painfully surface-level.