I Want Your Sex
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Ooh, sex is back, baby. It is back.
In the very fun new movie I Want Your Sex, Olivia Wilde plays a mixed media artist named Erica who enters into a very consensual and very kinky but very unprofessional sub-dom relationship with her assistant Elliot. He's a directionless kid just out of college and he's played by Cooper Hoffman. Elliot is having the time of his life, exploring his every fantasy, but Erica is a lot, and soon Elliot's life starts to fall apart. It's directed by Greg Araki, and it doubles down on the fun, in-your-face sexuality he's known for, so we will be talking about sex on this episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. I'm Glenn Weldon. Joining me today is my co-host, Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha.
Hey, Glenn.
Also with us is NPR producer Mark Rivers. Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me, guys.
Ayesha, let's start with you. What'd you think? Ooh, sex is back, baby. It is back.
What is I Want Your Sex about and who are the hosts introducing it?
If this movie is any indication of that, and also, of course, you've already mentioned the invite, which we've talked about on this show. I really, really dug this. This is a movie that like there are no lines to cross. There's no lines to bend. Like everything's just like a mass puddle, like fluid circles. In every sense. And that's what I love about it. It's like a very tricky tightrope to walk when you're talking about sex and especially when you're talking about sex in the manner that Araki and his co-writer Carly Shortino are.
How does I Want Your Sex portray the sub/dom relationship between Erika and Elliot?
This is a movie in which ethics don't exist for certain characters in ways that are really kind of unsettling and hard to process, but it also makes it fun. And that I think is something that has been missing with a lot of works that are about sex and sexuality and coming of age stories in that way. I recently watched Pillion for the first time, and I feel like it would be interesting to put that movie up against this. Very different, but also some similarities in terms of like older person with younger person and BDSM and BDSM adjacent things. But yeah, I enjoyed it. It's fun. And I'm very excited to dig into this more with you both here.
Great. What about you, Mark? Yeah, you know, I'm going to say something I feel like I haven't gotten to say in quite a long time on this podcast, which is I liked it. Yeah, I know, right? It's very funny. It's well acted. It comes from a real POV. I usually mention this tightrope that is walking. I feel like Gregor Wacky is just like doing pirouettes on this tightrope. He's really enjoying being on this tightrope. It feels like such a refreshing rebuke to so many sad things in this movie culture that we have where so many films are gray and dreary. This movie just pops with color, right? While many stories have the sex kind of sapped out of them, you have this supremely sexy performance from Olivia Wilde.
I think about all these other shows and films where the sex kind of acts as trauma, you know, sex is pain, you know, something like Euphoria. Yeah. Or in White Lotus, where sex, if it's there, is kind of this emblem of a kind of spiritual emptiness, you know? And Araki is here to say, no, no, no, sex can be fun. Sex can be exciting. Sex can teach a lot about yourself. Yes, you might get hurt, but, you know, that's what life is like, you know? Life, you get hurt. And so I like that it's not shying away from those things. I don't know if it sticks the landing. I feel that the movie kind of takes... very hard pivots away from darker emotional terrain, particularly with regards to Chase Wee Wonders, who plays Hoffman's roommate in the film.
The movie gestures towards more emotionally complex ideas or plot threads and kind of pulls away, which I was a little disappointed by. But I think that's kind of part of Araki's overall design, which is this is kind of supposed to go down pretty easily.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–1:20
2
What is I Want Your Sex about and who are the hosts introducing it?
1:20–1:53
3
How does I Want Your Sex portray the sub/dom relationship between Erika and Elliot?
1:53–10:59
4
Why do reviewers call Gregg Araki’s direction 'in-your-face' and colorful?
10:59–14:28
5
How does I Want Your Sex balance satire, humor, and darker emotional pivots?
14:28–16:56
6
How do the hosts evaluate the film’s performances, especially Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman?
16:56–21:13