has published a review of Netflix’s Ladies First, a broad and chintzy 84-minute comedy in which Sacha Baron Cohen’s suave but sexist Damien Sachs bumps his head and wakes up in a world flipped so women are on top and men are scrambling to keep up — and Rosamund Pike’s put-upon single mother, Alex, rises to the top of the corporate ladder.
The review nails the film’s shape in numbers and detail: it runs 84 minutes, it leans on a flipped gender-politics premise, and it populates its topsy-turvy streets with oddball cameos — including Richard E Grant as a magical, pigeon-strewn hobo — while Cohen’s Damien Sachs provides the central comic engine.
That engine, the review says, is the problem. calls Ladies First a “broad and chintzy” comedy built on a single joke that the filmmakers stretch beyond its limits. In the paper’s telling, the film takes the real issue of women being undervalued and underpaid in the workplace and hammers the point “ad nauseam,” leaving little else to do the heavy lifting.
The review places Ladies First in a wider Netflix move and a cinematic lineage. It notes Netflix has decided to revive the dreadful British comedy of the 2000s — the era that produced titles the review cites by name — and it directly compares Ladies First to What Women Want, calling that 2000s forefather “infinitely superior.” The piece also links co-writer Katie Silberman to the project and to her previous credits on Isn’t It Romantic and Don’t Worry Darling, suggesting pedigree that the review nonetheless finds insufficient to save the film’s gag.
The tension the review highlights is straightforward: the premise has an obvious comic and political kernel — imagine reversing workplace dynamics and watching the fallout — but the execution flattens that kernel into repetition. What should be a satirical tilt turns into a one-note exercise, argues, with character beats and supporting ideas left underdeveloped because the film keeps returning to the same point.
For viewers who came for a quick Netflix comedy riff on gender and power, Ladies First offers a compact, occasionally amusing outing — its brief runtime and star turns are undeniably watchable — but the review’s verdict is clear. Netflix’s attempt to channel the spirit of Britain’s 2000s broad comedies ends up proving why those films were reviled then and why Ladies First, despite its cast and one-liners, feels like a misfire now.
