After a 12-year break from filmmaking, Gregg Araki is back with a message for Gen Z: Don't be scared of sex.
Araki's latest film, his first since 2014's White Bird in a Blizzard, I Want Your Sex, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, drawing scandalized gasps, bursts of laughter, and smiles all around.
The movie stars Cooper Hoffman (Phillip Seymour Hoffman's son) as Elliot, a 23-year-old recent college graduate who unexpectedly finds himself not only working as an assistant for an avant-garde and provocative artist (Olivia Wilde at her wildest), but also becoming her sexual sub and muse.
As their relationship becomes kinkier, more intense, and more chaotic, Elliot finds Erika floating face down in her swimming pool. He is suddenly a suspect in her murder.
Director Gregg Araki on set filming I Want Your Sex.Courtesy of Sundance Institute/Photo by Lacey Terrell
Most of Araki's work explores teens and young adults navigating a confusing modern world. This time, the filmmaker addresses Gen Z directly, commenting on the generation's its obsession with puritanical sex repulsion. It meets the moment in a smart, sharp, and hilariously sexy way.
Wilde is a Paul Dini illustration come to life, and is a perfect foil to Hoffman's inexperienced, wide-eyed youngster. Her tongue is sharper than the huge pair of scissors she drags across Eliott's naked chest while he's blindfolded.
Hoffman is superb as a confused puppy of a man who's obsessed with sex but doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. He even has "Yes?" and "No?" tattooed on his hands, as if indecisiveness is a literal part of his body. As he tells the detectives (Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville) about his relationship with Erika, his generation was raised by overprotective parents who made them terrified of anything that might hurt them.
So when Erika simply tells him what to do, Elliot is overjoyed, even if it means doing sexual things he never would have considered before.
Elliot's naivety is hilarious when he explains to the detectives that "strangely, the power imbalance made it more sexy" and "she's only 14 years older than me." You can hear the Gen Z voice loud and clear as he struggles to explain why the most problematic parts of his relationship are the most pleasurable. That goes against everything his generation has been taught.
Just when Elliot thinks he's at the top of the sexual world, the film reminds us that yes, sex and relationships can be dangerous. There is a reason people are afraid of them. Erika is truly vicious, and self-centered, and gleefully pushes Elliot past his limits, ignoring his consent, and culminating in a truly tragic attempted threesome where Elliot potentially ruins his relationship with his longtime best friend and ends things with Erika in one tear-filled night.
Still, sometimes to find yourself, you need to be scared, and to grow, you need to be hurt. Life is messy, and sex is one of the messiest parts. But that doesn't mean we should avoid it. Instead, this movie embraces the messiness and violence of sex and reminds us that our trauma is a part of what makes us who we are.
That is ultimate message in I Want Your Sex: Araki wants young people not to be afraid to push or even break their boundaries. He wants them to explore, try, and fail. That's how you become an individual.
Gregg Araki is one of the prototypical Sundance filmmakers. He's a legend in the New Queer Cinema movement and has been at the festival 10 times before, including with classics like Mysterious Skin, which is getting a special Legacy Screening this year. Because of that, this movie has an extra layer of shine. There's something special about seeing an Araki project at Sundance, and when it's as good as I Want Your Sex, it becomes a transcendent experience.
I Want Your Sex also stars Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, and Charli XCX. It was written by Araki and Karley Sciortino.
Out review: 4 out of 5 stars.
