I Want Your Sex

When recent college grad Elliot (Cooper Hoffman, "The Long Walk") lands his first job as an assistant to provocative artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde, "The Invite"), his med student girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX, "The Moment") is just happy she doesn't 'have to support his lazy ass' anymore while his roommate Apple (Chase Sui Wonders, 2025's "I Know What You Did Last Summer") looks at Tracy's work online and asks how it's different from porn. Both of these relationships will be casualties when Erika immediately flouts convention, inviting the willing Elliot to be her sexual submissive in "I Want Your Sex."

Laura's Review: B

Before we see anything on screen, the first words we hear are Elliot exclaiming 'F*ck,' 'f*ck,' 'f*ck,' 'Oh f*ck,' but despite his breathless delivery and the fact that he's wearing a pink bra, the situation that is revealed isn't the sexual situation we've imagined, but a reversal of the famous beginning of "Sunset Boulevard." And a female artist grasping at straws trying to remain relevant is but one of the themes explored in cowriter (with 'Slutever's' Karley Sciortino)director Greg Araki's ("The Living End," "Mysterious Skin") kinky sex comedy, his first feature since 2014's "White Bird in a Blizzard" and perhaps his most accessible. Olivia Wilde appears to relish her role as the extremely sex positive dominatrix with conflicting ideas about the value of her art while an adorably shaggy, naive Cooper Hoffman tests her emotional reticence.

With a playful nod to Adrian Lyne 1996 erotic drama, a title card throws us back '9 1/2 Weeks Ago' when Elliot is still trying to get Minerva interested in sex (she isn't). He's also nervous about his upcoming interview, more so when he arrives to see all the candidates ahead of him before being stunned when he's hired on the spot after a brief conversation with the stunning Erika. On his first day on the job, Erika's right hand, Vikktor (Daveed Diggs, "Hamilton"), instructs a small group including Elliot and the more worldly Zap (Mason Gooding, "Scream VI") to begin chewing gum and placing it within the lines of a large vaginal drawing.

The grooming begins with Erika calling Elliot into her office to tell him it's been noticed how he looks at her, the horrified young man sputtering apologies. But then he's asked if he has a girlfriend, then she suggests they should have sex. Before he knows what's happened, Elliot is in Erika's home being penetrated with a well lubed dildo. Soon, Elliot's suggesting a timeout with Minerva, one she accepts all too readily, but Vikktor appears to be jealous of all the attention Elliot's draining away from him and uses Erika's upcoming show to refocus her attention. It doesn't last long, Erika's libido demanding Elliot come over and bring a friend for a threesome, but when Elliot arrives with Apple but balks when Erika tries to become observer, Apple's undeclared feelings for her roomie bust the situation wide open. Elliot suddenly finds himself with no emotional support in his life and chooses the occasion of Erika's show to publicly chastise her, just one of many reasons it bombs, leading us right back to where we began.

Throughout Araki will segue to Elliot in an interrogation room being questioned by Detectives Zem ("Jackass'" Johnny Knoxville) and Zola (Margaret Cho, "Fire Island"), neither appearing to believe his version of events, adding a murder mystery to a comedy sending up everything from the commodification of contemporary art to Gen Z's more puritanical attitudes about sex. Araki and Sciortino wrap things with a triple ending, that, for once, is deserved, first solving the mystery, then adding two segments, the first a matured Elliot two years later to comment on scandal's influence on fame, then going out with a bang by suggesting sexual intimacy may actually lead to emotional connections.

There's some unfortunate, obvious soft drink product placement (Spindrift and Coca Cola) that points to budgetary necessity or tongue-in-cheek artistic whoredom or both and an unnecessary subplot about Erika sending Elliot to her visiting French friend Yvette (Roxane Mesquida, "Kaboom") as a birthday gift, but overall "I Want Your Sex" is a most enjoyable romp from Araki.

Magnolia Pictures releases "I Want Your Sex" in theaters on 7/31/26.