Gregg Araki returns to his provocation-courting roots with "I Want Your Sex," a satire that enlists Cooper Hoffman as a sex slave to Olivia Wilde's commanding presence. The film trades Araki's signature transgression for a safer, more commercially palatable approach while still wrestling with contemporary sexual politics and Gen Z vulnerability.
Hoffman, continuing his post-Licorice Pizza momentum, grounds the film's central premise through his performance. Wilde executes the role's demands with conviction, though the script's satirical teeth prove duller than the premise promises. Araki structures the narrative around themes of sexual honesty and the paralysis that grips younger generations when confronting genuine desire and intimacy.
The satire aims at easy targets. Araki wants audiences to confront Gen Z's paradoxical relationship with sex: endlessly online, aestheticized, yet emotionally cautious. The film argues for radical honesty between partners, for shedding the performance and risk-aversion that defines contemporary romance. It's a worthy thesis wrapped in a tamer execution than the title suggests.
Wilde's character becomes the film's mouthpiece for this philosophy, pushing Hoffman's protagonist toward vulnerability despite the power imbalance the narrative establishes. That dynamic offers potential for darker comedy or genuine provocation, but Araki opts for a gentler touch throughout.
The film functions best as a return to Araki's 1990s sensibility, when provocative cinema about sex and youth felt essential rather than nostalgic. "I Want Your Sex" lands as a middling effort that understands what it wants to say about desire and authenticity but struggles to find the formal innovation or comedic sharpness to make those ideas sing.
Hoffman's willingness to inhabit discomfort carries the film through its flatter stretches.