I WANT YOUR SEX
- Colin Fraser
- Aug 25
- 2 min read
TWO AND A HALF STARS With a new show coming up, artist Erika Tracy hires inexperienced Elliot as her sexual muse. What could possibly go wrong?
COMEDY US English #IWANTYOURSEX Starring Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman
It’s been a while between drinks for Gregg Araki. More than a decade, in fact, which is a long time for a filmmaker who once made sexual transgression look like a competitive sport. I WANT YOUR SEX is his return to feature filmmaking, and while it’s certainly raises an eyebrow amid the lively, filthy and occasionally very funny shenanigans, it’s not a seismic return for the one-time provocateur.
Cooper Hoffman plays Elliot, a sexually inexperienced young man who lands a job with the gorgeous, PVC clad Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), an artist who treats sex as both medium and philosophical enquiry. She recruits Elliot as her sexual muse, introducing him to kink, S&M and a considerably less vanilla existence.
Naturally, the boundaries between artistic experiment, sexual relationships and appropriate workplace boundaries become blurred (if not annihilated). Then pesky feelings get involved and what had looked like an unconventional coming-of-age experience heads towards a much more interesting, darker, tale of obsession, betrayal and murder.
Wilde, again, is terrific. Off the back of THE INVITE she is hot property (in all senses of the phrase) and Erika gives her a role she can attack with considerable relish. She prowls through the film with the confidence of someone who knows exactly how much attention she commands. She knows when to turn it on, and how to turn if off. Elliot’s hooked and horribly out of his depth, his enthusiastic bewilderment providing much of the comedy.
Araki throws sex toys, nudity, S&M, topless (and some bottomless-)ness at the screen and much of it is fun. But if he’s expecting us to be shocked he should be shocked that we’re not. It’s 2026 and less-ness isn't exactly risqué, any more than putting a sex toy in shot. After all, OAP’s Grace & Frankie were selling them online a decade ago… Naked bodies aren’t particularly transgressive but how we think about them is. Or can be.
And that's where the problem lies. It’s been a long time since his formidable MYSTERIOUS SKIN (2002), and this feels like a filmmaker remembering his old tricks rather than rediscovering his bite. There are taught observations about the value and purpose of art, or Gen Z's complicated relationship with sex and intimacy, but here the American gaze has turned the material into something titillating rather than genuinely confronting.
It's fun. It's lurid and occasionally outrageous. But where THE INVITE hit hard, I WANT YOUR SEX is not much more than a playful slap on the wrist.
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