For What it's Worth

Complicated people in places that are characters in their own right

“Ladies First”

Speaking of gloriously gonzo, Sacha Baron Cohen, the hot mess (said with respect and gratitude) behind the devilishly caustic “Borat” films, stars in this rom-com-lite, gender-reversal spin with a side of nasty. The movie has a killer cast (Charles Dance, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Fiona Shaw, Emily Mortimer and the ever-underrated Kathryn Hunter), yet can’t find the footing to distinguish itself.

Director Thea Sharrock based it on the 2018 French comedy “I Am Not an Easy Man,” but the updating triggered “What Women Want” (2000) vibes in me. Maybe that’s because both Cohen and Mel Gibson play chauvinistic ad execs who get gendered comeuppance when a reality-altering happenstance changes the fabric of their universe — Gibson’s self-centered id can hear the thoughts and desires of women nearby, while Cohen’s crass conqueror gets a bop on the head and comes to in a female-driven world where fast food staples are now Burger Queen and Five Gals.

The big timestamp — side note here — is the instantiation of #MeToo. “What Women Want” and “I am Not an Easy Man” predate it, leaving “Ladies First” to walk a delicate line — which it does so with clunky awkwardness. Cohen’s Damien Sachs ascends to head of the Atlas ad agency and promotes newly hired creator Alex Fox (Pike) to be his Guinness team lead for gender optic reasons. Fox overhears Sachs’s pleasing-the-client logic, but before the ugly truth can gain any traction, the world flips and Fox is suddenly Sachs’s boss. We are in a universe where men are used as sex symbols to sell product, and at church it’s the Mother, the Daughter and the Holy She.

The best part of the movie is Shaw as the CEO (in the man’s world she was a lowly receptionist) who wants Sachs’ middle manager as a play thang. Also fun is Hunter’s Glenda, a cleaning woman in one reality and the minter of CEOs in the other. Her gravely British baritone and accompanying demeanor bring a brash bubbly element to the otherwise drab formula. In the she-ocracy Cohen does get to belt out some “Sex Farm” nonsense that’s humorous for a nanosecond, but overall, “Ladies First” is a lot of sharp edges that never find ripe fruit to cut into. Sexism at its most basic is skin deep, but films about It — comedic or not — shouldn’t be.