'I Want Your Sex' Provokes an Insatiable Thrill
It’s Olivia gone wild. I Want Your Sex is the second movie this year where Olivia Wilde is involved in a sexually charged plot that questions the conventions of a relationship. The picture makes its points while holding your attention with provocative imagery. There are a lot of things to love about this movie, as it’s a love story that twists our notions of the very word in many directions. Throughout multiple instances, you wonder where the plot is taking you, only to be subverted, but in a cheeky manner.
Sex is freedom. Yet, we repress it. It’s the thing we don’t talk about in casual conversation, but we all think about and want it. Writer/Director Gregg Araki sees how sex is humorous and beautiful. The picture is about manipulation and sex addiction. Most movies that are about sex addicts tackle the subject matter as crassly taboo. I Want Your Sex displays sex as freeing, but also confining. It indeed has all the taboo elements that cinema looks down on. For exploiting their pleasure, our characters pay a price.
There are many elements the movie successfully tackles, like how this generation is too shy. They suppress their very primordial urges because they’ve either become too soft or grown up in a technologically driven age that limited human interaction. It’s unique to see a relatively older director tackle a current generation so concisely. Gregg Araki was born in 1959, yet if you look at his profile picture, you’d think he’s in his forties. It goes to show that age and experience can really grow one as a storyteller. The plot of the movie follows familiar beats, yet it pulls the rug from under the audience without it being subversion for the sake of subversion.
The story starts with a bang, presenting violence and nudity within its first few seconds. Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) wakes up bleeding, discovering a dead body in the pool. We then cut to Elliot being interrogated by Johnny Knoxville? Along with one other cop. It’s a “how did we get here?” murder mystery wrapped around a twisted romance. Elliot is an art student taking an internship for the prestigious artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). During the interview, Erika invades Elliot’s psychological space, asking him perverted questions. It’s the situation women often feel in the workplace, but this time, it’s a man put in that position. She wants him to have sex with her. Not for romance, but release. Giving in to his desires, he accepts her offer. However, the friends-with-benefits internship begins to get to his head. His relationship with his girlfriend Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) is loveless. The spark is gone, and she hasn’t had the pleasure of discovering herself sexually as Elliot has with Erika. Apple is okay with Elliot sleeping around as artists defy conformity. Except Elliot starts to feel nothing for Apple while falling in love with Erika.
When the sex wears down, so does the relationship. If you don’t find your partner attractive, then the sex begins to go away. That’s when all the negative feelings start to come out. Erika exploits his feelings for her own personal gain because she knows the truth about sex. Yet she fails to embrace the reality of people.
Oliva Wilde plays a role that’s opposite of most movies. Where the woman is usually submissive towards the man, this flick turns it around. The movie is counterculture, so it’s the point to play things opposite of how they usually go. Most importantly, it’s a film about how we can easily become involved with toxic people. From the start, we dislike Erika. She’s pretentious and condescending. She treats people like they’re an inconvenience. Everyone is just a utility to further her work. Why anyone would ever trust her is a question of circumstance. In Elliot’s case, he couldn’t find love from his girlfriend for something that seems very obvious to the sexually awakened.
Erika not only offers a physically satisfying position for Elliot, but a professional one too. Under her internship, Elliot has the chance to thrive in his studies. Losing the internship could be all the doors closing on him. Because of what it may cost Elliot, Erika exploits his feelings in some sort of sickening version of public humiliation. By taking sexual advantage of a man, Erika proves how a woman’s body is more powerful than a man’s mind. Or at least, that’s what her smug art is about.
When we reach the movie’s end, we learn what love is in a way that hasn’t been looked at many times before. There is love, but we want, we need sex. I Want Your Sex is an almost perfect celebration and cautionary tale about lust that goes deeper than most comedic thrillers do. If you’re to do your own Barbenheimer for the July 31 weekend, you can watch Spider-Man, then see I Want Your Sex as a late-night closer. What double-feature term should it be given?
