TMS Movie Review: I Want Your Sex

(Lacey Terrell / Magnolia Pictures)

If you had told me 15-20 years ago former starlet/eye candy Olivia Wilde would be having one of the most interesting career trajectories of the mid 2020s, I’m honestly not sure how I would react. But I know it wouldn’t be unsurprise. Only just this year she already directed and co-starred in one of my favorite films of 2026, The Invite, and now she’s the female star of indie film legend Gregg Araki’s new movie, I Want Your Sex. In the previous picture, Wilde played the conventional housewife, and in this new feature she’s the unpredictable sex expert.

In modern day, downtown Los Angeles, CA, college grad Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is couch crashing at his best friend, Apple’s (Chase Sui Wonders), apartment when he impulsively decides to sign up as the new assistant of erotic artist, media personality and sexologist Erika Tracy (Wilde). Young, hormonal and curious, Elliot is all on board to not only work for Erika’s art studio, but also be her ethically questionable ‘sexual muse’ that includes all sorts of kinky acts in her office and at her house. Though in over his head initially, Elliot can’t help but find himself drawn to the crazy, horny, super sexy allure of Erika; even if it means being demoralized personally and professionally.

I Want Your Sex is co-written by Araki and Vogue columnist and Slutever creator Karley Sciortino; and has popstar Charli XCX as Elliot’s neglectful girlfriend, Mason Gooding and Daveed Diggs playing co-workers at Erika’s studio, and Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho appearing as crime investigators Elliot is narrating the story to.

(Lacey Terrell / Magnolia Pictures)

Unfortunately, I thought this was a bit of a mess, and made me wonder if Araki was well past his prime, which fans had already been pondering way back in 2014 with his last film, White Bird in a Blizzard. The writer-director was one of the most important names in both LGBQT cinema and independent film for the 1990s; but three decades later, even someone as subversive and unique as Araki can come off out of touch with young people and modern society. Mocking Gen Z and subtly missing ‘the good old days’ through a lot of Erika’s dialogue in the first act of the film feels stale, and some of the characterizing in the roles miss the mark as well. Erika and Elliot are interesting and played memorably by Wilde and Hoffman; almost making the movie feel like a bizarre mesh of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd (1950) if it were set in contemporary S&M community, or the sex comedy version of something like Curry Barker’s Obsession from this past season. I also find it very amusing Hoffman seems to have willing typecast himself as young men paired with attractive, aggressive older women. But the worst aspects of I Want Your Sex are XCX’s Minerva, who even 20 years ago would have been considered dated as the cold, frigid girlfriend, and Gooding’s Zap, who brings nothing fresh to the sassy gay friend cliché.

I Want Your Sex should have been a fun, grown-up time at the theater, but instead concludes frustratingly on multiple levels.

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