Ladies First: Movie Review

‘Have some balls! It’s a saying!’ says Sacha. ‘Balls? Those weak things that make a grown man cry with one teeny little smack?’ retorts Alex. Or something like this.

I felt that!

At the start of the movie, ‘Ladies First’ is simply an afterthought to our male protagonist, mr up-and-coming sigma male played by Sacha Baron Cohen. He’s introduced as just having bedded two virgins and before long, we are ‘entertained’ by frequent displays of power over his female coworkers. Meanwhile, our female protagonist Alex, played by the bold Rosamund Pike, hears that she has just been promoted by Sacha! Delighted, she begins her first new day as exec and not before long, it dawns on her that she was promoted not because she did good work, but because she was a woman. Just ‘any old’ woman. Pure tokenism.

It is right about then when ‘Ladies First’ takes on a whole new meaning. Too busy throwing his misogynist fit to notice where he is walking, Sacha bumps his head on a great big pole and gets transported to another world (‘isekai’d by pole-kun for my fellow weebs out there) - a world where women are, and have always been, in charge. Thus begins a prolonged ‘wake-up call’, like what Scrooge got in a Christmas Carol, for Sacha.

I won’t go into more detail because I think this movie is one where seeing is believing. As a straight man, I felt very strong messages directed at me. What if I was the one who tended to be ignored? What if I was the one who tended to be sexualised? What if I was the one who was the second sex? The blatant imagery and top-notch acting by Sacha, never let me think ‘it’s not so bad’. Even the comedy, while making me laugh my butt off, got me fearing such things may happen to me. The movie is so absurd yet the performances are still played completely straight, and that’s great! I found it to the point, honest and compelling (even the brief sex scenes…they were quite something).

Yet I found it interesting that the film is hardly talked about positively. I saw some negative press online. The rotten tomatoes critic score is a measly 26%. I even saw a reddit post arguing that it might be antifeminist, a stance that I largely disagree with. None of my colleagues have brought up the show either, even though I would think it might have piqued some of their radars. Too British for their tastes perhaps?

Anyway, I think the film is memorable. Might even be worth a rewatch! If not for a straight man’s misogyny tutorial, for Sacha Baron Cohen’s sexiest man alive impression, Rosamund Pike’s bold CEO or Charles’ Dance’s anti-Tywin Lannister.