The Reel Review
A nerdy new hire at a trendy Los Angeles art gallery finds his dreary life transformed when the sex positive gallery owner/artist decides to make him her submissive in a BDSM relationship. Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman star in this farcical comedy.
Watching Wilde rock all these crazy getups is the most fun part of this intentionally silly comedy, which pokes fun at the pretentiousness of the world of modern art. Wilde’s Erika truly is captivating, which makes her interest in the schlumpy Elliot even more strange and amusing. Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) is hysterical as her haughty assistant Vikktor, with nice assists from Mason Gooding and Chase Sui Wonders as Elliot’s gay co-worker and his roommate. Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho are underutilized in one-note roles as police detectives and a miscast Charli XCX phones-in her performance as Elliot’s clearly disinterested girlfriend.
Co-writer/director Gregg Araki (White Bird in a Blizzard, Mysterious Skin) is well known for his sex comedies featuring biting social commentary, and while his first feature film in 12 years has its awkwardly funny moments and a nice send-up of Gen Z’s apparent lack of interest in sex, dating or relationships, his film seems more interested in being pointlessly silly than in having anything important to say, much like the modern art he lampoons.
REEL FACTS
• The original 16-year-old screenplay had a male gallery owner and female sub/employee, but director Gregg Araki switched the genders after the 2017 rise of the #MeToo movement.
• Cooper Hoffman (The Long Walk) says he was thrilled to work with Olivia Wilde because he and his father, the late Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), used to watch her together on the 2004 medical series House.
• I Want Your Sex was shot in 17 days, with Charli XCX filming all of her scenes in one day.
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