This is a dark, raunchy sex comedy co-written and directed by former indie darling Greg Araki. Araki made a major splash with The Doom Generation in the 90s, and was declared a master with his 2004 Mysterious Skin. He didn’t really capitalize on the acclaim for that movie. In the 22 years since then, he’s written and directed only three feature films, including this one. The previous one was in 2014.
The premise:
A fresh-faced 23-year-old naif is hired by a jaded pop artist (Olivia Wilde) to be her sexual muse. He willingly submits to her every sadistic fantasy, and becomes so invested in their relationship that he loses his girlfriend and his female best friend, yet he can’t quit the twisted relationship, nor can his freaky boss. The story is told in flashback, in a framing story in which he is interrogated by detectives about the night he found his horny employer face down and naked in a swimming pool.
One reviewer summed it succinctly as follows:
Araki has returned triumphant to the “come on now, lighten up” theme in the kinky 90-minute comedy I Want Your Sex, which finds humor in the gap between his generation and young adults whose libidos have fallen into slumber.
Tomato Meter: 91%
Popcorn Meter: 66%
Metacritic: 67/100
IMDb: 6.4
I found it entertaining enough to watch without the fast-forward button, but I didn’t expect that 91% on the Tomatometer. That’s a big score for a raunchy, R-rated comedy. The other three scores for I Want Your Sex are consistent with each other, and with my general assessment, but that 91% is in the “classic comedy” range – higher than Borat – and it seems inflated. Even The Big Lebowski, a widely acknowledged comic masterpiece, scored only 79% at RT.
On the nudity front, Araki has not succumbed to the recent trend for fully clothed sincerity. He’s as transgressive, provocative and campy as ever, although there’s no female full-frontal. (Yes to male.)
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The five R-rated comedies in this millennium that have scored at least 90% at RT, 7.0 at IMDb and have grossed at least $50 million internationally:
2004 Kung Fu Hustle 90% 7.7 $88m
2006 Borat 90% 7.4 $134m
2007 Hot Fuzz 91% 7.8 $57m
2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel 92% 8.1 $115m
2015 Spy 94% 7.0 $125m
Damn, these are going to be good once in HD maybe a top 20 in this so far weak 2026
High scores from critics due to the male full-frontal. There’s no female full-frontal, and overall, the female nudity is light, so that’s another plus for the critics’ ratings. Have you really not noticed that critics have been pushing the same propaganda for years?
There are two things we can be sure of when we open a Scoop post, even one about nudity in a new movie: we’ll get a great article from the site’s owner, who always delivers entertainment or information—and often stories and trivia we never even imagined—and the other certainty is that we’ll have Dawid talking about penises and his own hang-ups in the comments lol.
Well, I suppose it’s nice to have something we can count on in today’s crazy, mixed-up world. Maybe, anyway.
You said the magic word three times and summoned ‘Cawandi’ Man above here. Tsk, tsk, you know better than to do that.
Same them three times again, so he goes away again…
Thank you Gregg Araki for making us freaky again.
The thonged masked scene might not be her? Stunt butt?
Though I haven’t seen the movie, maybe she takes off the mask.
I think there might be some “movie magic” shenanigans throughout the film. Things seem to blur when they should not in that scene with the topless conversation. The swimming pool scene – who knows? May be a mix of her and a double.
To be fair, Lebowski is also pretty offbeat, which probably dropped the percent by some amount.
Yeah, TBL pretty much the textbook definition of “cult classic”. But, that, just, like, my opinion, y’know.