It’s been ten years since director Gregg Araki’s last film and in between he’s helmed several episodes of different TV series but returns to the big screen with, ‘I Want Your Sex’. Not a George Michael bio-pic but instead it’s what is described as a ‘return to form’ which in Araki’s case is provocative and occasional controversy right from the start which sees a ginger haired man regaining consciousness and wearing pink frilly women’s underwear with his face smeared with lipstick but it’s not a deleted scene from Netflix’ Harry & Meghan documentary. The man is Elliot (Cooper Hoffman here looking like Simon Pegg’s chubby ginger brother) who finds a naked woman floating face down in a swimming pool and the film forwards to Elliot now being interviewed by police about the incident with the film then recounting what had led up to that moment.
Why I want your sex…
It all starts after Elliot has been employed by Erika Tracey (an always great Olivia Wilde), a conceptual artist and agent provocateur through her art. Her regard or more rightly her disregard for her employees has her treating new intern Elliot as her sex slave in a sub-om relationship that he’s only to keen to participate in that turns out to be series of sexually humiliating degradations. Tied up, whipped pegged and whining like a little bitch it’s a wonder that Hoffman’s role is not played by a British politician.
And yet he’s only too happy to participate because the relationship with his own girlfriend Minerva (Charlie XCX) with her prudish Gen Z disinterest is sexless and what sex they do have is vanilla compared to the outlandish humiliation that Erika perpetrates upon him that will come back to haunt him.
Sexy or sexless?
Both Hoffman and Wilde are well suited to the roles and Wilde especially remains as compelling a presence as she is in pretty much every role she ever takes making her one of the most compelling actresses of modern times. As good as she is she’s given a run for her money by Mason Gooding as one of Erika’s gallery assistants who steals every scene he is in with waspish and very funny quips. But it’s not long before Elliot realises that he is just a plaything to Erika asking, ‘Am I just a piece of ass to you?’ The films take on abusive relationship where one side has an unhealthy interest in kinks and gives no thought to breaking any unspoken agreements is engagingly played in a breezy 90 minutes.
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Here’s the trailer….
