I Want Your Sex

Olivia Wilde is single-handedly bringing erotic comedy back to the box office this year. First there was the four-way dinner party delight of The Invite, and now she dons a lot of (or very little) PVC for the long-awaited return of Gregg Araki with the deliciously silly I Want Your Sex.

Wilde plays extremely kink-positive artist Erika, who’s all-in on the capitalist machine, though more jaded than Warhol, berating the industry as a money-making scam devoid of creativity. Much like the Factory, she needs minions to man/woman/other the production line.

In strolls schlubby Elliot (Licorice Pizza’s Cooper Hoffman) in too-baggy jeans and shirt. Fresh out of art school with big debts and little promise, he’s bludging off his best mate, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders), who’s shouldering his half of the rent. Somehow, he beats far more qualified folk to the job at Erika’s studio. Largely because she eats little lost boys like him for dinner. 

Erika’s soon introducing Elliot to the joys of flogging, gagging and pegging, both in her office and her palatial bedroom. This, even though Elliot has a girlfriend, the begrudging Minerva (the increasingly ubiquitous Charli xcx wins comedy gold for delivering a hilariously faked orgasm).

She’s soon introducing him to the joys of flogging, gagging and pegging

At the studio, Mason Gooding’s fab fun trust fund gay rolls his eyes at Elliot’s elevation, as does Daveed Diggs’s Viktor, Erika’s cranky right-hand man, who scowls at the latest in the artist’s long line of NSFW assistant conquests. There’s also the small matter of the noirish cold open, with a body floating in the pool like it’s Sunset Boulevard and two detectives on Elliot’s case, played by Araki alum Margaret Cho, and Johnny Knoxville.

The triple entendre screenplay by Araki, co-writing with Karley Sciortino, flings filthy one-liners around like they’re going out of fashion. Hoffman’s deadpan line-reading of: ‘Lighting, context,’ when Apple asks Elliot what the difference between Erika’s work and porn is, is a zinger. As is her sweet summer child musing on how great life could be if only there were a way to have sex without a penis. 

Popping off with primary colours and phallic imagery, I Want Your Sex isn’t quite as explosive as Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy and could have used a tighter edit, but it’s still a real good time. Wilde’s on fire, with her zillenial-destroying vamp getting us off all the same.

I Want Your Sex screened at the Sydney Film Festival.