Forget the sex – although this playful comedy has plenty of that – what Gregg Araki really wants with his raunchy latest film is to have a good time with a top drawer cast while poking a bit of fun at Generation Z hang-ups, and buttoned up attitudes towards carnal desire.

Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is the latest recruit at the gallery of Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a provocative pop artist whose work centres on male and female genitalia. Fresh from college, Elliot is shy and dishevelled, tasked with chewing shocking pink gum before adding to one of her more outré pieces. Erika, however, is a voracious vamp who wastes no time in enlisting the 23-year-old as her sexual plaything, drawing him into a BDSM relationship in which he is the willingly submissive partner.

It’s all a far cry from Elliot’s less than racy relationship with his girlfriend Minerva (a delightfully deadpan Charli XCX). Minerva is more interested in studying than sex, so Elliot jumps at the chance to enact his wildest fantasies with his new boss. Erika, in turn, views his long term relationship as a good thing because she prefers sex with whips rather than strings attached.

We don’t learn about their dynamic immediately, as Araki begins his story towards the end, suggesting that something has gone drastically wrong. Erika is floating face down in her pool while Elliot, in flimsy ladies’ underwear, looks as though he’s been in a fight. As Elliot is quizzed by cops (Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville), the action flashes back a cheeky 9½ weeks to show how events unfolded.

Araki may be 66 now, but he still approaches his filmmaking with the energy of a teenager and in terms of visuals, he’s every bit as provocative as Erika. He is aiming for laughs more than satire or social commentary, so while I Want Your Sex offers plenty to smile about, some may feel it should show its teeth a bit more.

As Elliot and Erika have a series of cheerfully risqué sexual encounters, involving submissiveness and an endless array of S&M sex toys, the emphasis remains on humour. Erika’s gallery installations give plenty of scope for some outrageous production design in terms of the bodily-oriented artwork, which may prove rather rich for some audiences. The costume design for Erika is also a work of art, from sculpted red dresses to see-through tops that leave little to the imagination.

Wilde and Hoffman pitch their performances perfectly, making the sessions between Erika and Elliot look convincing without slipping into parody. That’s mainly thanks to the extreme contrast between Erika’s sexual freedom and Elliot’s naivety, coupled with dry scripting from Araki and Karley Sciortino. They give Erika a steady stream of pithy one-liners. "The real art," she insists, "is convincing people you’re making something meaningful and complex when it’s really just arbitrary masturbation."

As a big show looms for Erika, the power imbalance starts to cause problems for Elliot who has begun to have genuine feelings for her. Hoffman does an excellent job of conveying his character’s conflict over his feelings, offering the film some grounded emotion.

Although hinting at the potential problems with this sort of powerplay, most notably after Elliot gets his sweet best friend Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) involved in the game, Araki isn’t interested in heading into darker waters.

The supporting cast are uniformly excellent, from Sui Wonders to Mason Gooding as Elliot’s drily observant gay art gallery colleague Zap and Daveed Diggs as Erika’s haughtily dismissive business manager Viktor. There may be one too many climaxes but there’s no shortage of laughs.

I Want Your Sex is released in UK cinemas on Friday 26 August 2026.

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