I Want Your Sex

“I firmly believe that human beings are built for sex and for love – and that we should dole out as much of both as possible before we’re old and ugly and nobody wants to touch us anymore”. This quote from Gregg Araki’s 1997 youth odyssey Nowhere could almost serve as a manifesto for the cult filmmaker’s entire body of work. It also explains why the 66-year-old is so troubled by Gen Z’s puritanism that he has now made an entire film as a plea for the preservation of sexual freedom.

In I Want Your Sex, Cooper Hoffman (The Long Walk) plays Elliot, a bumbling young man in his early 20s, who lands a coveted job opportunity assisting provocative artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). As her art draws directly from her sexual exploits, it doesn’t take long for their professional relationship to cross into an affair. Amid erotic experimentation and the push-and-pull of dominance and surrender, Elliot unexpectedly finds himself entangled in a criminal investigation when Erika is reported missing.

The film’s erotic thriller undertones practically see-saw with its comedy, as the two mutually amplify each other. Yet suspense is not Araki’s main objective. His focus naturally gravitates towards feverish montages of pleasure-seeking, where desire is both subject and spectacle. Lively and electric day-glo colour schemes highlight the uninhibited freedom of these sequences, a visual expression of liberation. By contrast, the brown and grey tones of the scenes, in which Elliot is interrogated by the police – and constantly made to justify his actions – drain the images of any vitality.

Hoffman and Wilde share an intriguing, downright transfixing dynamic that fuels the feature’s momentum. His bright-eyed curiosity and receptiveness provide a counterpoint to her jaded worldly wisdom, yet the two qualities complement rather than oppose each other. It proves equally effective in the sillier passages complete with piggy masks and paddles, as well as the more earnest discussion about the contemporary reluctance toward intimacy.

It feels almost paradoxical that I Want Your Sex is perceived as rebellious, when it is easily the filmmaker’s most accessible work. Instead of the abrasive edges or fragmented structures of his earlier films, it is full of playful celebration and humour (most notably evidenced by Charli xcx’s guest appearance). Its message is clear: there is no escaping pain and disappointment in life, so one might as well embrace the joyful experiences it offers.

Selina Sondermann

Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival 2026 coverage here.

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