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Now playing: I WANT YOUR SEX (2026)
Be sure to add a note of conviction to your voice when asking the box office attendant for a ticket. You never know what will come of it
Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde) and boy toy Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) spend a rare moment together in the great outdoors in I Want Your Sex.
I WANT YOUR SEX (2025) Gregg Araki / Screenplay: Gregg Araki & Karley Sciortino / Cinematography: Tucker Korte (1.85 : 1) / Design: Angelique Clark / Editors: Gregg Araki & Victor de la Parra / Composer: James Clements / Acted by: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Daveed Diggs, Mason Gooding, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Chase Sui Wonders, Charli XCX, Roxanne Mesquida, and Araki stalwart Javes Duval / Magnolia Pictures / USA / Rated R / 90 mins.
A brief and harrowing detour before we even set out on this review: two boys are both molested by their small-town little league coach. They grow up: one attempts to block it out by imagining he was kidnapped by aliens, the other moves to New York and becomes a street hustler. Had this story been left to the devices of mainstream Hollywood, the duo would no doubt have collaborated on their abuser's demise. Or worse, they would have been gifted a fairy-godmother superhero to do the job for them. But instead, it was handled by Gregg Araki, and the result, Mysterious Skin, remains the strongest indictment of child sex abuse yet put to film.
Video:
Trailer: I Want Your Sex
It’s been years since I’ve thought about Araki. His last feature, White Bird in a Blizzard, was released over a decade ago. The ensuing years have found him lending his talents to the small screen and failing to catch my interest. When his name popped up as writer/director of I Want Your Sex, I was both eager and curious to take in his return. Was it worth the wait? No. It would have been better if he had kept making movies and not raised my hopes by his return from exile. But that by no means should diminish the quality inherent in this nasty, laugh-out-loud funny, cynical exploration of the fatuous cult of celebrity.
Araki appears to have gotten more juvenile as years passed, and I'm not sure if I mean that as an insult.
The film opens much in the same manner as Mysterious Skin. We see our protagonist Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) nursing a bloody nose, his memory wiped clean, before his search for a culprit unfolds in flashback. The body floating face down in a swimming pool is that of Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde, decidedly down for the role), a flaming provocateur to whom Elliott plays muse. Interspersed throughout, we encounter a jumbled Elliott valiantly trying to convince a pair of detectives (Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville, neither of whom have ever been put to such “normal” use) that he had nothing to do with the crime. Officer Joe (Knoxville) asks if Erika had started grooming him the first day they met; it's clear the thought has never crossed Elliot's mind.
Elliot, 23, is the nebbish drawn like an iron filing to a magnet: his new boss, Erika. She’s an "artist" who values price tags over actual art and treats people like disposable sources of inspiration. During her interview with Elliot, she barely looks up from her phone; she's the type who dangles bait just to see you squirm. A week into the gig, she hauls him into the office to accuse him of flirting. It’s a rigged game: if he denies it, she says she was kidding; if he admits it, she kicks him to the curb.
In the school of hard knocks, Erika majored in abuse and humiliation. Now her art consists of orchestrating the sound of herself masturbating or directing a group of employees to chew pink bubble gum and stick it on a large pencil drawing of what will eventually become a three-dimensional vagina.
Araki isn't looking to slap on a 51st shade of gray here — there are no shadows in the director’s blazing neon universe. Instead, he and screenwriter Karley Sciortino decided to add bounce and avoid stereotyping by inverting the gender roles. And no matter what you say in praise (or condemnation) of Erika, she can always top it.
The film tends to falter when it's not centered around the two leads.One of Elliot’s assignments is to meet up (and hook up) with one of Erika's friends, played by Araki regular Roxanne Mesquida. The ensuing scene is neither amusing nor arousing. And Elliott’s relationship with his girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX) is strictly monotonal: he wants to have sex and she doesn’t.
If it’s a smutty, hard-R rated sex comedy you’re in the market for, it’s doubtful there will be anything this year to top I Want Your Sex. And be sure to add a note of conviction to your voice when asking the box office attendant for a ticket. You never know what will come of it.
Rating ***
Now playing at the Digital Gym.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Now playing: I WANT YOUR SEX (2026)
Be sure to add a note of conviction to your voice when asking the box office attendant for a ticket. You never know what will come of it
Now playing: I WANT YOUR SEX (2026)
Be sure to add a note of conviction to your voice when asking the box office attendant for a ticket. You never know what will come of it
Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde) and boy toy Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) spend a rare moment together in the great outdoors in I Want Your Sex.
I WANT YOUR SEX (2025) Gregg Araki / Screenplay: Gregg Araki & Karley Sciortino / Cinematography: Tucker Korte (1.85 : 1) / Design: Angelique Clark / Editors: Gregg Araki & Victor de la Parra / Composer: James Clements / Acted by: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Daveed Diggs, Mason Gooding, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Chase Sui Wonders, Charli XCX, Roxanne Mesquida, and Araki stalwart Javes Duval / Magnolia Pictures / USA / Rated R / 90 mins.
A brief and harrowing detour before we even set out on this review: two boys are both molested by their small-town little league coach. They grow up: one attempts to block it out by imagining he was kidnapped by aliens, the other moves to New York and becomes a street hustler. Had this story been left to the devices of mainstream Hollywood, the duo would no doubt have collaborated on their abuser's demise. Or worse, they would have been gifted a fairy-godmother superhero to do the job for them. But instead, it was handled by Gregg Araki, and the result, Mysterious Skin, remains the strongest indictment of child sex abuse yet put to film.
Video:
Trailer: I Want Your Sex
It’s been years since I’ve thought about Araki. His last feature, White Bird in a Blizzard, was released over a decade ago. The ensuing years have found him lending his talents to the small screen and failing to catch my interest. When his name popped up as writer/director of I Want Your Sex, I was both eager and curious to take in his return. Was it worth the wait? No. It would have been better if he had kept making movies and not raised my hopes by his return from exile. But that by no means should diminish the quality inherent in this nasty, laugh-out-loud funny, cynical exploration of the fatuous cult of celebrity.
Araki appears to have gotten more juvenile as years passed, and I'm not sure if I mean that as an insult.
The film opens much in the same manner as Mysterious Skin. We see our protagonist Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) nursing a bloody nose, his memory wiped clean, before his search for a culprit unfolds in flashback. The body floating face down in a swimming pool is that of Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde, decidedly down for the role), a flaming provocateur to whom Elliott plays muse. Interspersed throughout, we encounter a jumbled Elliott valiantly trying to convince a pair of detectives (Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville, neither of whom have ever been put to such “normal” use) that he had nothing to do with the crime. Officer Joe (Knoxville) asks if Erika had started grooming him the first day they met; it's clear the thought has never crossed Elliot's mind.
Elliot, 23, is the nebbish drawn like an iron filing to a magnet: his new boss, Erika. She’s an "artist" who values price tags over actual art and treats people like disposable sources of inspiration. During her interview with Elliot, she barely looks up from her phone; she's the type who dangles bait just to see you squirm. A week into the gig, she hauls him into the office to accuse him of flirting. It’s a rigged game: if he denies it, she says she was kidding; if he admits it, she kicks him to the curb.
In the school of hard knocks, Erika majored in abuse and humiliation. Now her art consists of orchestrating the sound of herself masturbating or directing a group of employees to chew pink bubble gum and stick it on a large pencil drawing of what will eventually become a three-dimensional vagina.
Araki isn't looking to slap on a 51st shade of gray here — there are no shadows in the director’s blazing neon universe. Instead, he and screenwriter Karley Sciortino decided to add bounce and avoid stereotyping by inverting the gender roles. And no matter what you say in praise (or condemnation) of Erika, she can always top it.
The film tends to falter when it's not centered around the two leads.One of Elliot’s assignments is to meet up (and hook up) with one of Erika's friends, played by Araki regular Roxanne Mesquida. The ensuing scene is neither amusing nor arousing. And Elliott’s relationship with his girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX) is strictly monotonal: he wants to have sex and she doesn’t.
If it’s a smutty, hard-R rated sex comedy you’re in the market for, it’s doubtful there will be anything this year to top I Want Your Sex. And be sure to add a note of conviction to your voice when asking the box office attendant for a ticket. You never know what will come of it.
Rating ***
Now playing at the Digital Gym.