Directed by: Gregg Araki.
Written by: Gregg Araki and Karley Sciortino.
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding.
Runtime: 90 minutes
Raunchy ‘I Want Your Sex’ wants Gen Z to loosen up
You might not think you’d enjoy watching Olivia Wilde Sexually torture Cooper Hoffman and use unforgiving sex toys on rather indelicate regions of his body, but that’s because you haven’t seen “I Want Your Sex” yet.
New Queer Cinema movement pioneer Gregg Araki (“Mysterious Skin,” “The Doom Generation”) returns with an unapologetically smutty new comedy cowritten with Slutever scribe Karley Sciortino that will have the more prudish and sex-averse Gen Z viewers clutching their proverbial pearls. But the battle-worn Boomer and kinky Millennial screenwriting duo are here to give them some pleasure and more than a few laughs if they consent.
Elliot (played by a very game Cooper Hoffman) doesn’t know what he’s doing, professionally or romantically. Awkward, frumpy and broke, Elliot interviews for a job far outside of his league as an assistant at a blisteringly hip studio for renowned visual artist Erika Tracy (played by an also very game Olivia Wilde), whose contemporary work pushes the boundaries of taste and comfort.
Elliot inexplicably gets the job, and fish-out-of-water doesn’t begin to explain how out of place the sex-starved boy is in the world of contemporary art, especially in Erika’s orbit. Erika is everything Elliot is not: confident, popular, well dressed, and in full control of her sexuality with a bed that never goes cold. That she would deign to hire Elliot is baffling. That he would become her personal sex toy seems madness.
And yet Erika locks onto Elliot, and soon the high-powered provocateur has the hapless pup crawling on all fours, taking a spanking and begging for more in a BDSM-fueled escapade. Is Erika giving Elliot the gift that every young, dumb, full-of-you-know-what man dreams of, becoming the erotic muse of a libidinous sex fiend, or is this just an HR nightmare? Is Erika fulfilling a young man’s sexual fantasies or using his body and breaking his mind in the process?
Oh, you should also know the film opens with Erika’s lifeless body floating in her swimming pool, with Elliot the prime suspect in her murder. So, there’s that.
“I Want Your Sex” is about as subtle and sophisticated as its title (which is to say, not very), but it’s also as cheeky and unabashed. Araki is wildly waving red flags at the angry bull of mainstream sex discourse – you’ve got a near-20-year age gap between a boss and her employee, grooming, uncertain consent, and kink without a safe word. It’s an unquestionably toxic dynamic made pleasurable against our better judgment by Hoffman and Wilde, who throw themselves into leather and lace with abandon, fixing the ball gags on tight and finding pleasure in the pain.
It's a bold move in a prudish artistic era when the necessity of every sex scene is questioned. But Araki’s been around the block more than a few times since his Teenage Apocalypse film trilogy, and he’s more than happy to show the next generation the way.
Barbara’s ranking
3/4 stars
