I Want Your Sex review: You don't want this

By Seth Lukas Hynes I Want Your Sex Starring Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde MA15+ 3.25/5 In I Want Your Sex, the latest erotic thriller from veteran American queer filmmaker Gregg Araki, Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a schlubby out-of-work college graduate, is roped into being the submissive sexual partner of his dominatrix artist boss Erika (Olivia Wilde). On a craftmanship level, I Want Your Sex is solid, with witty dialogue, steady pacing, striking camerawork and an amusing caricature of pretentious art culture, and Hoffman once again proves himself a great up-and-coming actor. However, this will be a miserable watch if you aren't interested in an unlikeable wet blanket being exploited by a sexy sociopath. Between The Invite and I Want Your Sex, 2026 seems to be the year of Wilde getting paid to be a jerk on-screen. I Want Your Sex draws suspense from stepping out of your comfort zone, transgressive thrills and fraught relationship dynamics, but several scenes trivialise consent, and later Elliot and Erika's messed-up relationship veers into a contrived conspiracy. While I Want Your Sex acknowledges Elliot's violated boundaries to some degree, it ultimately comes down on Erika's girl-boss side. Sex-positive media isn't positive when it plays loose with consent, lets the abuser off the hook and treats the whole traumatising ordeal as a character-building net good. Araki apparently made I Want Your Sex to confront the perceived prudishness of Gen Z, but an annoying, unsexy erotic thriller with a shaky take on consent and accountability isn't the way to do it. I always try to balance my opinions with more objective qualities and whether someone else might like a film if I don't; One Battle After Another is a very good film I don't like, but while I deeply disliked I Want Your Sex, I'm comfortable calling it a bad movie due to its sugarcoated, inadequately challenged presentation of abuse.