It really doesn’t take much to whip up an internet firestorm where seemingly everybody online has an opinion they need to deliver in a splenetic shout. But some topics are more incendiary than others: The first trailer for Netflix’s comedy Ladies First seems like it’s designed not just to push people’s buttons, but to draw bristling reactions from everyone who makes it their business to have opinions on movies.
Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Damien Sachs, a smug, sexist, womanizing advertising-company CEO who gets clonked in the head and wakes up in an alternate world where men and women’s roles have been reversed. Suddenly, scantily clad men are all over billboards. Women are ordering Damien to smile and complimenting his “pretty face.” The Pope is a woman. Worst of all (for Damien), his former underling Alex (Rosamund Pike) is now the head of his company, and he’s contending with the same kind of institutional barriers and casual prejudices she and the other women in his agency once faced.
The premise recalls other high-concept alternate-world stories, like 1995’s White Man’s Burden, a John Travolta/Harry Belafonte drama set in a world where white people are a societally persecuted minority, or Naomi Alderman’s 2016 bestselling novel The Power, about a world where women gain a superpower that lets them dominate men and rewrite history.
But as a comedy, Ladies First more closely resembles Nancy Meyers’ divisive 2000 comedy What Women Want, where a different sexist ad exec, played by Mel Gibson, has a different accident, and wakes up with the ability to read women’s minds. He uses that power to manipulate women and succeed at work, until his new understanding of women makes him empathize with them more as people. The broad response to that movie might be a barometer of how people will react to this one — reviewers found it ambitious and creative, but also condescending and preachy.
Ladies First could go in a whole lot of directions. The initial trailer is fast-paced, sprightly, and pointed, but societal inequality a comedy minefield. Some people (particularly those most affected by gender inequity) won’t find this topic humorous, no matter what — but especially if, as the trailer suggests, Damien turns out to be better at navigating sexism than women were back in his original world.
Others (particularly those who most benefit from gender inequity) will yell that the premise is a lie, and insist that if anything, women in modern society have it easier than men. (This movie feels like the results of a laboratory experiment designed to offend the manosphere as much as possible.) It’s hard to find unifying ground in a story built around criticizing deep-seated power structures — and it’s much, much easier to yell online about a movie, sight unseen, than it is to face those power structures head-on.
Here’s what the movie has on its side, though: It’s directed by Thea Sharrock, who made 2024’s zingy, hilarious dark comedy Wicked Little Letters. Cohen and Pike are strong comedic presences. The solid supporting cast includes Richard E. Grant, Fiona Shaw, Emily Mortimer, and Game of Thrones‘ Charles Dance. And whether it lands well or not, the movie is certainly trying to do something daring.
Here’s Netflix’s summary of Ladies First:
Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen) seemingly has it all: money, power, and a never ending stream of casual flings. As he prepares to ascend to the role of CEO at a leading advertising agency, his life is turned upside down when he wakes up in his worst nightmare: a parallel world dominated by women. Where he once ruled the boardroom, he now finds himself humbled and going head-to-head with the newly fierce and fearless Alex Fox (Rosamund Pike). With the rules of engagement changed and Alex at the top of her game, the two boldly battle it out in a comedy about what happens when the script is flipped.
We’ll see how Ladies First navigates the rough road ahead on May 22, when it releases internationally on Netflix.
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