Vague Visages’ I Want Your Sex review contains minor spoilers. Gregg Araki’s 2026 movie features Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Johnny Knoxville. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Gregg Araki has suggested in numerous interviews that his latest effort, I Want Your Sex, is his response to what has been dubbed a “sex recession,” as Gen Z has all but shut themselves off from hooking up. But the American filmmaker’s tale of an awkward 23-year-old, Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), and his inappropriate workplace relationship with boss-turned-dominatrix Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde) couldn’t be seen as particularly reactionary. Araki seems aware that there are substantial reasons why today’s young women wouldn’t want to dip into the dating pool, and that a tale of sexual liberation shouldn’t dampen the mood by exploring them.

In I Want Your Sex, Elliot gradually realizes that his girlfriend, Minerva (Charli XCX, perfectly cast against type), is primarily focused on her medical school studies, which makes him easy catnip for a more experienced woman. He’s the kind of sexually frustrated 23-year-old who could easily be manipulated down a darker path due to a lack of sexual experience, even if he does claim himself to be culturally queer — something Elliot’s gay co-worker, Zap (Mason Gooding), shuts down as a concept. The masterstroke of I Want Your Sex is that Elliot does untold damage to both his personal and professional lives by finally experiencing a fulfilling sexual relationship. Rather than dramatizing I Want Your Sex as a cautionary tale, Araki paints the film as a character-building experience for Gen Z. The director and his co-writer, esteemed Vogue sex columnist Karley Sciortino, leave many sexual innuendos firmly out of the frame, and ensure that any sex commentaries on generational divides only come from their most unreliable character, such as Wilde’s modern art provocateur Erika, who openly admits to saying controversial things just to see if anybody’s listening, and casually begins a dom/sub relationship with her younger and more inexperienced studio assistant.

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I Want Your Sex refrains from becoming an “old man yells at cloud” lecture on why young people should get laid more. If there is a flaw, it’s that the erotic thriller elements feel underdeveloped and unsatisfying next to a raunchy yet rewarding comedy, existing purely to force the protagonist into a place where he can address his romantic wants and needs. The entire story is narrated in flashbacks as Elliot’s very sexuality is put on trial. Not only does the protagonist defend his innocence in relation to a mystery only briefly alluded to in the opening act, but he must also find the words to articulate why a morally questionable BDSM relationship with his employer is, well, extremely hot.

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Hoffman’s performance is effective because his character is hardly introverted or overly socially awkward. He’s just someone who settles for less than what they want without interrogating themselves further. Elliot is the kind of positive avatar that straight men don’t realize they need onscreen right now, regardless of their kinks in the bedroom. Wilde is also expertly deployed as Hoffman’s counterpart, at least whenever Araki resists turning her into something resembling a femme fatale. It’s still one of her strongest and funniest performances, a fitting companion piece to her excellent turn as the sexually repressed wife at the center of her recent directorial effort The Invite (2026), which is an otherwise far more formulaic tale of the conflict between conventional romantic relationships and kinks.

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As you’d expect from a former enfant terrible like Araki, there’s no interest in exploring the ethics of a no-strings relationship which crosses all sorts of HR boundaries; the most puritanical Gen-Zers who flinch at the term “age gap” will already be running scared from a movie with sex in its title. As told from Elliot’s perspective, I Want Your Sex isn’t a tale of being taken advantage of, but rather one about finding yourself and understanding your sexual desires through a series of bad decisions. Elliot can only begin to verbalize his turn-ons. When he tells the police about his desires, it’s more a moment of growth than the low point it initially appears to be.

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When seeing many of Araki’s early movies as a budding queer cinephile, I found them to be tiresomely provocative for the sake of provocation. I was a generation removed from the context of their release, unable to reckon with how they smartly weaponized the media’s depiction of gay people at the height of the AIDS pandemic to tell darker queer stories, and with characters who aren’t mere victims. Naturally, I owe them all a repeat visit. I Want Your Sex is nowhere near as abrasive when it comes to untangling the messiness of heterosexual desires, as it’s a traditional tale of generational male malaise in the vein of The Graduate (1967), albeit with more whips and chains. Which doesn’t mean there’s anything to suggest Araki has softened with age, or has lost any of his black and cartoonishly comic edge. He just treats his audience like adults when talking about sex, and has no interest in overly explaining anything a younger generation might find ethically troubling. Outside of the liberated world of contemporary queer cinema, I Want Your Sex is like nothing else on our screens right now.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) is a film and TV critic based in Manchester, England. By day, he interviews the great and the good of the film world for Zavvi, and by night, he criticizes their work as a regular reviewer at outlets including The Film Stage and Looper. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

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