A One Mann’s Movies review of “I Want Your Sex”. (2026, 3.5*, 18).
If Olivia Wilde is going to be associated with anything this year, it’s going to be SEX! Her last offering, The Invite, which she both starred in and directed, was a refreshingly frank tale of sex and couple-swapping. Now she stars in the sex-comedy I Want Your Sex as an outrageously sexy boss who recruits her young employees as her dom/sub sex slaves. It’s wrong on so many levels and any HR director would have a blue fit if this was going on in their organisation!
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Elliot Bell (Cooper Hoffman) is delighted to get his first post-graduation job at the design studio of artist Erika Tracey (Olivia Wilde), famed internationally for her highly provocative erotic art. But with an “Erica wants to see you in her office”, Elliot is introduced to a dizzying new life of sexual exploitation and BDSM that he gets quickly addicted to.
Certification:
UK: 18; US: R. (From the BBFC website: “Strong sex, sexually abusive behaviour.”)
Talent:
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, Charli XCX, Daveed Diggs.
Directed by: Gregg Araki.
Written by: Karley Sciortino & Gregg Araki.
Running Time: 1h 30m.
Review:
Positives:
- The film bristles with snarky, sexy humour, beating the six-laughs test within minutes. We start the film with Erika Tracey (Olivia Wilde), naked, floating in her swimming pool and a bloodied Elliot Bell (Cooper Hoffman) jumping in to try to save her. Then comes the caption “9½ weeks earlier”. (This is obviously in reference to 9½ weeks: the famous sexually explicit film from 1986. Another comes later: “She (Erika) fucked Vincent Gallo at the premiere of The Brown Bunny when she was just 18″, The Brown Bunny being infamous for a real fellatio scene by Chloe Sevigny on Vincent Gallo.) The rest of the film sees Elliot recounting his torrid relationship with Erika to two detectives (interesting cameos by Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho).
- Erika is a boss so outrageous that you gasp at some of the inappropriate things she says. “I would NEVER say something that inappropriate” she says, after she’s just said something shockingly inappropriate! Olivia Wilde just goes for the role like a thing possessed, chewing the scenery left right and centre and mustering up comedy gold as a result. It’s one of the most out-there acting performances of the whole year, in a really good way.
- Cooper Hoffman is perfectly cast as Elliot. Hoffman, son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, made a huge impact with me in Licorice Pizza and more recently Saturday Night and The Long Walk: an impressive CV for such a young man. In this film, Elliot is locked in an uninspiring relationship with the apparently asexual, workaholic, girlfriend Minerva (with Charli XCX in another magical piece of casting). When Elliot tries to initiate sex with her she moans “But we just had sex 11 days ago”, accusing him of being a “sex-addict” and of “draining her qi”! While I abhor infidelity, you can see why Elliot would leap at the chance to cheat on her with Erika: in fact, it all proves a wake-up call for why he has put up with this barren relationship for so long.
- Erika introduces Elliot to erotic literature via 1948’s “Never Love a Stranger” by Harold Robbins! But then she introduces him to a torrid world of BDSM as a “sexual astronaut exploring the outer limits of experience” – with Elliot experiencing all of his sexual fantasies and then some he hadn’t planned on! “Sex is not something you do…” purrs Erika “…it’s a language, it’s a dance”. And dance they do, in manners which well earns this film its 18 certificate. (Having said that, there is only limited nudity shown – Hoffman’s buttocks and Wilde’s breasts: but much of the sexual action and toys employed leave little to the imagination.) Much of this you suspect comes from the pen of co-author Karley Sciortino, who is the founder of Slutever, a website and blog that focuses on sex and sexuality, executive producer and host of the Viceland documentary series. She also writes Vogue’s online sex and relationships column, Breathless. So she lives and breathes sex her every waking moment.
- Because of the underlying exploitation story, I didn’t find the film to be particularly arousing. The only time it became so for me was during a threesome scene where Elliot’s platonic friend Apple (a terrific performance by Chase Sui Wonders of Bodies Bodies Bodies and I Know What You Did Last Summer) joins Erika and Elliot (who she clearly has a hidden crush on) in the bedroom. Of course, this episode results in disaster and recrimination, but as a standalone scene, the lead-up to the chaos was erotically charged.
- The finale of the film is very funny, where we flip forwards a couple of years… twice. I was starting to get annoyed with the second of these, but the pay off was worth it!
Negatives:
- In terms of tonality, the film is a bit all over the place. At various moments, we divert into cartoonish animation: the breasts of Minerva (Charli XCX) suddenly becoming enormous animated versions of themselves; Elliot falling into a spiral of chaos (like Mel Brooks in High Anxiety); Erika’s face dissolving. All of these are really funny… but they are so unexpected left-turns that they took me out of the storytelling briefly.
- This is NOT a film for prudes. I heard the wife of an older couple along the row from me say to her husband when the BBFC certificate came up “I told you it was an 18.” I hope they were prepared! For this is an assault on the senses with well-lubed dildo’s, whips, bondage equipment, bubble-gum vaginas and anal play that makes this film perhaps NOT one to take your old gran along to (unless you are a very Bohemian family).
Summary Thoughts:
Not for the prudish (so be careful who you watch it with), but Gregg Araki’s comedy IS very funny, smashing the six laughs test and raises uncomfortable questions about whether sexual exploitation is exploitation if the ‘victim’ is gagging for it! Anchored by two terrific and brave (read “revealing”) performances by Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, this is a grown-up sex comedy that never kink-shames and never pulls its punches.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZL0OY3IwZI. Note that this is the red band trailer, so NSFW.
Subscribe
Don’t forget, you can subscribe to One Mann’s Movies to receive future reviews by email right here. No salesman will call!