After a 12-year hiatus, New Queer Cinema pioneer Gregg Araki has finally returned to feature filmmaking with coital comedy I Want Your Sex. Perhaps it’s the numerous studies detailing Generation Z’s waning interest in sex that lured the frisky filmmaker back, as that generational divide is at the centre of his playfully provocative new film. Though now well into his sixties, this isn’t Araki in old-man-yells-at-cloud mode – the veteran filmmaker is as playful as ever, launching a cheeky, sex-positive plea to zillenials to go forth and fornicate.
The film opens on a nod to Sunset Boulevard as we see a body floating, naked and face-down, in a swimming pool. It is the body of Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a famous pop art provocateur. Cut to an interrogation room, where Erika’s young assistant Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is questioned on the nature of his relationship with Erika to two police officers (Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville).
Though the mystery of Erika’s presumed death bookends the film, this is far from a noirish crime caper. Araki and co-writer Karley Sciortino use the narrative device as a way to chart the central relationship from Elliot’s point of view.
Awkward, schlubby and generally aimless, Elliot doesn’t have much going on in his life. He lives with his best friend Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) and is in a mostly sexless relationship with his disinterested girlfriend (Charli XCX). Things seem to be on the up when he lands a job as an assistant at Erika’s swanky art gallery, but things quickly become messy when Elliot is roped into a BDSM relationship with his domineering boss.
It’s potentially thorny material – a dom-sub relationship between a younger employee and his older employer – but Araki doesn’t approach it with much solemnity. The sex is depicted in a very positive – and often funny, awkward and messy – light as Elliot is always a willing participant in Erika’s extreme predilections. As much as he is confused by the whole set-up, he’s also enthralled by it and can’t stop going back for more, until feelings get in the way. This is where Araki’s seemingly frivolous approach reveals something more sincere: the messiness of sex and relationships isn’t an argument against either. The emotional highs and lows come hand-in-hand with the physical pleasures, but for all sex can be awkward, messy, and confusing, for Araki this doesn’t make intimacy something to fear or avoid – it makes it something worth embracing.
As the central couple, Hoffman and Wilde are both fantastic. Fully committed to their roles and sharing a fittingly offbeat chemistry, they make for an unlikely screen couple but that is part of the appeal. Wilde, who made one of the year’s best films with The Invite, is again a delightful surprise here. Erika is like Miranda Priestly in latex instead of Prada and Wilde relishes every judging stare and withering put-down. It’s a wildly different performance to her uptight, repressed character in The Invite but Wilde is incredible in both roles, really coming into her own as a versatile comedienne.
Not all of Araki’s ideas here land – the noir plot is half-baked and his critique of the art world feels fairly rote, but I Want Your Sex is the kind of funny and vibrant sex comedy that is rarer and rarer these days. Delivered with humour and over the top sexuality, its libidinous message is refreshingly uncomplicated: pleasure is messy, desire is confusing and getting hurt is sometimes the price of getting close to someone.
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