{"id":20629,"date":"2026-01-27T21:00:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/screening-at-sundance-gregg-arakis-i-want-your-sex-review\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T21:00:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:00:43","slug":"screening-at-sundance-gregg-arakis-i-want-your-sex-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/screening-at-sundance-gregg-arakis-i-want-your-sex-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Screening at Sundance: Gregg Araki\u2019s \u2018I Want Your Sex\u2019 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in Gregg Araki\u2019s I Want Your Sex<\/em>. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lacey Terrell<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While not exactly a return to form, Gregg Araki<\/a>\u2019s first feature in a dozen years is nonetheless a welcome comeback. A kindly workplace sex farce, I Want Your Sex<\/i> is crafted in the vein of Halina Reijn<\/a>\u2019s more serious erotic drama Babygirl<\/i><\/a>, which Araki claims to have found too \u201csex negative.\u201d Its story, penned alongside Karley Sciortino<\/a>, sees introverted college graduate Elliot (Cooper Hoffman<\/a>) ensnared by the advances of his seductive older boss, the provocative art magnate Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde<\/a>), who turns his world and relationships upside down.<\/p>\n

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The film is a wonderful performance showcase that begins with a campy mystery. Elliot, nose bloodied and clad in women\u2019s lingerie, stumbles out in a daze to the mansion swimming pool of his employer, only to find her naked and face down in the water. As he\u2019s interrogated by a pair of straight-laced detectives (Margaret Cho<\/a> and Johnny Knoxville<\/a>, who try to suss out binary motives), his recollections return to a few months prior\u2014specifically 9\u00bd weeks prior, a cheeky tribute to erotic thriller maestro Adrian Lyne<\/a>\u2014and acquaint us with the movie\u2019s major players.<\/p>\n

Desperate for a job, Elliot applies to be Erika\u2019s assistant during these lengthy flashbacks, while studying up on her verbose, often contradictory proclamations on modern art\u2014which she delivers in the nude. After a flirtatious interview, where Erika hopscotches back and forth across the line of appropriate workplace banter, Elliot is hired suspiciously quickly, much to the chagrin of Erika\u2019s stylish, sour-faced executive Vikktor (Daveed Diggs<\/a>), who can\u2019t help but stare daggers at the art world rookie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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I WANT YOUR SEX \u2605\u2605\u2605 (<\/b>3\/4 stars<\/i><\/b>)<\/b>
<\/b>Directed by:<\/b> Gregg Araki
Written by: <\/b>Karley Sciortino, Gregg Araki
Starring: <\/b>Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Charli XCX
Running time:<\/b> 90 mins.<\/p>\n\n<\/td>\n

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Elliot doesn\u2019t really belong. Everyone in Erika\u2019s art studio is a trust fund baby with an immaculate, often boundary pushing sense of style (for instance, a self-assured, skirt-wearing male assistant played by Mason Gooding<\/a>), while the fresh-faced Elliot shows up with frumpy, unremarkable dadbod fits\u2014alongside subtle rings, studs and mannerisms that hint ever so slightly at a subdued queer questioning. It\u2019s perhaps this sense of unease that makes him such easy prey, but initially, he doesn\u2019t mind. Despite having a girlfriend, the sardonic, withholding Minerva (Charli XCX<\/a>), and a doting roommate\/best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders<\/a>), something\u2019s missing in Elliot\u2019s life\u2014a hole Erika fills in more ways than one when she makes him her sub in the bedroom, and he gradually agrees to debase himself in unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

He experiences an immediate sense of liberation followed swiftly by palpable discomfort. Araki\u2019s unobtrusive, irreverent approach\u2014reminiscent of his \u201cTeenage Apocalypse\u201d films in the 1990s\u2014affords Hoffman a physically expressive performance halfway between cutesy and comically perplexed, verging practically on slapstick thanks to his airtight timing. Elliot is way in over his head, but having his deepest desires fulfilled (which is to say, being turned into Erika\u2019s sex slave) unlocks something within him. Araki, however, takes the air out of this momentous self-discovery with the singular intention of ensuring he doesn\u2019t treat sex too solemnly or as too big a deal. Some moments become cartoonish in the process\u2014at times literally, through hand-drawn augmentations. (Someone should hire Hoffman as a live-action \u201cAWOOOOGA\u201d wolf.)<\/p>\n

Granted, this approach to sexuality works when it\u2019s primarily audiovisual, but there are clunkier moments wherein it takes the form of finger-wagging conversations that hit you over the head. Araki, once the enfant terrible of the Gen X queer scene, seems under the impression that kids these days are sexless prudes (he has his characters state as much), positioning I Want Your Sex<\/i> as a film of permission to let loose and live. It\u2019s hard not to wonder if a tale of blurred lines during power-play is exactly the right venue for this statement\u2014if for no other reason than the approach feels self-defeating.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s a tremendous amount of fun to be had. The performances are all fine-tuned, including and especially Wilde, as an unhinged sex monster whose sociopathic selfishness runs deeper and darker than you might expect. Despite dressing and behaving with a sense of sexual emancipation, her views on her own erotic photography seem to shift depending on the whims of who she\u2019s talking to. Perhaps Araki is aware that, despite his prowess, he isn\u2019t the singular authority on sexual imagery. But whether or not Erika is some vessel for an older artist\u2014one entering a complicated world of instant cancellations (would it surprise you to learn Erika rails against \u201cwokeness\u201d?)\u2014these anxieties help Wilde craft a marvelous performance that hides pulsing anxieties in plain sight.<\/p>\n

I Want Your Sex<\/i> may not ultimately have much to say, but its livewire comic scenarios yield the kind of raucous, sexually charged entertainment seldom seen in Hollywood of late. It\u2019s a film in which queerness and BDSM are spoken of with a frankness that the repressed teens in Araki\u2019s 1993 landmark Totally F<\/i>***ed Up <\/i>could only dream of\u2014which perhaps raises the uncomfortable question of where an artist like Araki even belongs in a world where these boundaries have long since been pushed and prodded. Is there any dangerous territory left for him to tread? Maybe not. However, a film of such bawdy allure remains a welcome departure from the self-imposed (though more likely, corporately imposed) norms that might stifle sexual expression, despite the cinematic ground broken by Araki and his ilk over several decades. Maybe the filmmaker has his grump-flavored fun, if only as a reminder that there\u2019s still room for raunchy, entertaining trash in the American indie scene.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\"Screening<\/p><\/div>\n