Details from IMDB:
I Want Your Sex
Elliot lands a job for Erika Tracy as her sexual muse.
- Director
- Writers
- Stars
Initial Thoughts:
I’ve been a fan of Oliva Wilde for a few years now. She’s a rare breed: both a good actor and a good director. I also quite enjoy movies that explore BDSM and kink, a fascinating aspect of human behaviour, so with my wife out at a bachelorette party, I put this on through the CosmoGo app Friday night.
Main Points:
I can see why people dislike this movie; it has something we don’t see in film very often: a dominant woman and a submissive man. There are also several wild scenes, including one where a dildo is used on a man without much time to prepare and with hardly any consent. It could have been a very graphic scene, but thankfully it focuses on Elloit’s expression (Cooper Hoffman) and not Erika (Olive Wilde) penetrating him with a large dildo. Suffice it to say this movie is very 18+ and not for kids (or prudes, of course). There is plenty of humour, along with the surprise that it’s a bit of a murder/mystery (this happens in the first 5 minutes of the movie; I will try not to spoil anything else).
This is essentially the funnier/opposite version of Secretary, with Oliva Wilde playing the boss and Cooper Hoffman as the assistant. The movie also explores a different kind of sexuality for a man, and what it means to Gen Z. I thought Wilde and Hoffman were really good in this, and I enjoyed the offbeat/dark humour. It was fun to see Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho play cops and try so hard not to be funny, though you still can’t help but laugh a few times. While I enjoyed all the sex scenes, I think the film relies a little too heavily on them/shock value of seeing more extreme BDSM/kink on screen. There is also a lot of talk about sex and non-monogamy. and relationships, which slows the movie down/makes it a little depressing at times. There is a twist towards the end that surprised me, and of course Oliva Wilde does look amazing in bondage/dominatrix gear and is super hot.
Final Thoughts:
I did some looking, and it turns out that one of the writers of this,
Karley Sciortino, based the script on her own real-life experience with her boss! Olive Wilde also talks about how much she learned about BDSM and how liberating and fun the role was; check it out here. I had fun with this movie; I laughed, enjoyed the sex scenes and was even surprised a few times. I think they got a lot of details right with BDSM, but there is barely any mention of safe words or consent. Alcohol is used several times to get people outside their comfort zones/push sexual boundaries, and someone gets roofied, just in case these are triggers for you. I didn’t like how it relied on the traditional “here’s the shocking thing that happened, now let’s go back before!” trope and the ending, while fun, was a little too gross for me at one point. I give this a solid 7.5 out of 10 and would recommend it to anyone who is open-minded and would like to learn more about kink and BDSM, in this case with a very sexually open/confident woman in charge. I’m glad to see Wilde in her lack of fucks given era, and I look forward to seeing what she does next both as an actor and director.