I Want Your Sex Review

Gregg Araki Wants Gen Z to Fall in Love With Sex Again

By: Marc Kozak

I Want Your Sex

Gregg Araki Wants Gen Z to Fall in Love With Sex Again

By: Marc Kozak

It’s always interesting to hear people talk about sex scenes in movies these days. For a lot of people, they just don’t want to see it. “It’s just gratuitous,” or “it doesn’t have anything to do with the plot,” they’ll say, as if anything that doesn’t move the story from point A to point B isn’t worthy of their time.

Our younger generations are particularly averse to seeing any kind of sex on screen. The majority of respondents aged 13-24 in a recent UCLA study say that they want to see less sex and romance in traditional media, often citing that sex scenes make them and their friends uncomfortable. There are certainly a lot of reasons for this: a lack of close friendships and sexual partners following the isolation of the pandemic years, digital identity superseding a sense of real-world belonging, and even an increased fear of hurt and embarrassment thanks to literally everything being filmed and shared.

This is all terrible news to Gregg Araki, who has made a career out of making famously horny movies like Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation and Nowhere, a trilogy focused on youthful desire and queer sexual adventures. “Sex is a huge part of my life,” Araki said in a recent interview. “My journey as a person, as an artist — it’s all tied to sex, sexual experiences, relationships. All my movies are about that. I can’t comprehend life without it.”

So if anyone was going to create a “sex-positive love letter for Gen Z,” it’s hard to think of a director more qualified than Araki. I Want Your Sex, the 66-year-old filmmaker’s first movie in 12 years, is a very silly piece of pop entertainment, one whose singular purpose is to remind people that no matter how messy and confusing and painful and fucked up it can be to open yourself up to a sexual relationship, it is often critical to your evolution as a human being. There are risks, sure, and you might make so many bad decisions that it feels like your life is ruined beyond all repair, but it’s all about coming out of the other side with a better idea of what you want and who you are.

" I Want Your Sex is more campy than sensual, more interested in escalating the absurdity of a surreal situation instead of making scenes that are actually hot.  "

That all being said, I Want Your Sex is more campy than sensual, more interested in escalating the absurdity of a surreal situation instead of making scenes that are actually hot. There are leather outfits and handcuffs and naked butts being spanked, but very little in the way of actual eroticism. And that’s probably the point — Araki doesn’t want to further alienate a crowd that already might be hesitant to check something like this out. For some, the end result might feel a little tame given the subject matter, but this was always designed to be more of a goofy romp than a sultry steam-fest.

Elliot (a charmingly clueless Cooper Hoffman) is straight out of college and looking for his first job in Los Angeles, completely broke and struggling to pay rent for an apartment he shares with his best friend and roommate, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). He is desperate for female attention, especially since his gorgeous but apathetic girlfriend (Charli xcx, a natural at looking bored) is constantly studying for med school and is completely uninterested in anything Elliot has to say.

He ends up getting a thankless gig as one of a few assistants to the controversial artist, Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a fairly thin satire of the kind of artists who put the word “fuck” on a black canvas and sell it for millions of dollars. The movie’s satirization of the art world is pretty flimsy at best, and the Erika Tracy character — which serves as the mouthpiece for Araki himself — is about as provocative as the Wendy’s corporate Twitter account. She knows everything she’s doing is a scam — for example, Elliot’s first job is to chew a bunch of gum and stick it on the outline of a vagina — but she and her fabulously stereotypical business manager Vikktor (Daveed Diggs) spend most of their time trying to convince people with money that her art has meaning.

It becomes clear pretty quickly that Elliot was only hired by Erika to be the latest in her long line of sexual pets, and he has no problem with doing anything and everything that Erika asks. It’s not as insidious as it sounds — again, the movie’s tone is more slapstick than scandalous — and Elliot is initially thrilled to have the attention of someone so attractive and powerful, no matter how inappropriate the entire arrangement is. When Erika calls, Elliot comes running, happy to engage in light S&M shenanigans, or crawl around in a baby outfit while the leather-clad Erika prods him with various sex toys.

Elliot is soon hopelessly in love with Erika, who is clearly happy with their arrangement but isn’t the kind of person who is going to suddenly fall for her latest boy toy. We don’t get many glimpses into Erika’s true feelings; even if her borderline batshit exterior is her just playing a part, she is clearly never at risk of choosing Elliot over her career or hedonistic desires. It’s a toxic arrangement that is certainly not going to work out well for Elliot; he knows that Erika isn’t exactly marriage material, but he can’t help but fall for someone with the kind of confidence and frank openness about desire that he can only dream of possessing himself.

It’s strangely sweet to see Elliot start to grow into his own feelings and desires, even as Erika continues to push him to an inevitable point of no return. A disastrous threesome with his sexually uncertain roommate Apple (one of the funniest and most tender characters in the movie, played with real feeling by The Studio star Chase Sui Wonders) completely blows up Elliot and Apple’s lives, but also brings them closer to understanding what they want and who they are. It’s easily the best and most painful scene in the movie, one that serves as a perfect example of what Araki is after: a genuine moment of revelation and honesty.

It’s unfortunate that too much of the movie lingers in a state of hit-or-miss gags and slightly dated commentary, as these moments of real magic are few and far between. The movie’s framing structure, in which Elliot is periodically interviewed by two police officers (Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho) who are looking for information about the event shown in the opening scene, is a perfect example of the kind of tired narrative tricks that Araki could’ve updated. A few other supporting characters, including Mason Gooding as the sassy gay stereotype that befriends Elliot, aren’t given much to do other than chew already well-chewed scenery.

Thankfully, Wilde and Hoffman have easy chemistry, and their interactions are a lot of fun to watch. Wilde is especially having a good time playing — her words — “a pretentious whore from hell,” and completely nails the sociopathic, thrill-seeking tone of someone who is completely bored with their own success. The 23-year-old Hoffman is even more believable as a naïve young man completely out of his league, confident enough to think he deserves to be hooking up with gorgeous women but also completely unprepared to be challenged in any sort of meaningful way.

I Want Your Sex is breezy and fun, not necessarily saying anything we don’t already know, but still a valuable reminder that it’s okay to not know what you’re doing, especially when it comes to romance and sex. Taking the leap into vulnerability is always going to be scary, but sometimes that’s the only way to figure things out. What’s the worst that can happen? Certainly nothing nearly as bad as what happens to Elliot in this movie, and even he landed on a positive note. May as well get out there and make a few mistakes.