By John Corrado
I Want Your Sex is indie filmmaker Gregg Araki’s first film in twelve years since 2014’s White Bird in a Blizzard, and it’s a very fun movie that works as both high camp sex comedy and clever satirical commentary.
The film follows Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a bored and somewhat sexually frustrated young man who gets a new job working for Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a provocative modern artist and gallery curator. She openly views modern art as a scam, but is more than happy to capitalize off of it. And she is also very sexually liberated.
Elliot’s first assignment? Chewing pieces of gum with his openly gay co-worker Zep (Mason Gooding), and putting it on a canvas in the outline of a vagina. You know, art. Elliot is in an uneven relationship with his med student girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX), who barely hides her boredom from him, even during (infrequent) intercourse, and lives with his platonic female best friend Apple (a scene-stealing Chase Sui Wonders).
This is why the offer seems so appealing when Erika asks Elliot to become her muse, with her making his wildest sexual fantasies come true through a transactional BDSM relationship. But the dynamic becomes increasingly complicated. The narrative is structured around Elliot being questioned by two cops (Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville, oddly inspired casting), with an inciting incident that sets this up as a sort of crime movie told in reverse.
This is a movie that feels actually subversive and provocative in a way that a lot of films now don’t, not only due to its sexual content. This is Araki exploring blurred boundaries and power dynamics, by subverting expectations around gender roles, workplace relationships, and age gaps. He is satirically taking aim at a number of targets, from sexual dynamics to cancel culture, and the comedy more often than not lands.
Araki is poking at a number of taboos, including openly mocking how puritanical Gen Z has become, at once being the most open generation when it comes to embracing queerness but also the most prudish in terms of, well, actually having sex. Could this be classified as the first queer-friendly and kink-positive anti-woke sex comedy? I don’t know, but leave it to Araki to invent that genre.
But, as much as I Want Your Sex is about pushing buttons, Araki still finds some interesting ways to explore why consent and some form of boundaries are important. It’s also frequently very funny, with a number of edgy, laugh-out-loud moments, aided mightily by the game performances from Araki’s two leads (and own personal muses this time around).
Wilde eats up the role of an ice queen dominatrix, a performance that perfectly compliments the current winning streak she is on with her self-directed performance in The Invite. Hoffman continues to prove himself as one of our most dynamic young actors, with a screen presence that allows him to mine both comedy and pathos from the material as his character simultaneously gives up and reclaims power. Their performances ensure this is a fun ride through every twist and turn.
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