The grim reaper returns for Gen X blood. He’s come to collect—not Paul Thomas Anderson, he merely got a stay of execution after the stunning disappointment One Battle After Another; not Quentin Tarantino, who continues to rule the world despite not having made a film in seven years; not Christopher Nolan, a man’s who reached the summit several times over. Who’s up next? Richard Linklater? Robert Rodriguez? Todd Solondz? It’s a near-also-ran adored at Sundance and nowhere else, a man who hasn’t made a feature film in 12 years: Gregg Araki. Pushed into the ghetto of “New Queer Cinema” in the 1990s, Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy—Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation (1995), and Nowhere (1997)—was only recently made widely available with quality transfers in the proper aspect ratio by the Criterion Collection. Well into the 2020s, Araki’s most expansive and irreverent work was inaccessible, while his 21st-century output was around but neglected. Mysterious Skin (2004) and Smiley Face (2007) were solid attempts at mainstream, if not arthouse mainstream, American cinema, but even they flamed out after spectacular premieres at Sundance. His last feature, 2014’s White Bird in a Blizzard, came and went without much notice, while 2010’s Kaboom has the distinction of being the first film ever awarded the “Queer Palm” at Cannes (future winners included Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Carol, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma).
Araki fell into television in the 2010s, directing episodes of 13 Reasons Why, Riverdale, Now Apocalypse, and the Heathers series that was delayed over and over again and finally scuttled without any noise. Now, at 67, he’s back in theaters with I Want Your Sex, a pop sex satire starring Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde that premiered—where else?—at Sundance earlier this year. Reviews were good, but a bit too polite. No one was blown away by I Want Your Sex, which follows driftless art world intern Hoffman as he becomes the sexual submissive of Wilde, his contemporary shooting star boss. Hoffman’s girlfriend (Charli XCX) is cold as ice and always in bed studying for her Master’s. They never have sex. The rainbow coalition that works for Wilde immediately recognizes that Hoffman is wound way too tight, petrified of doing something wrong or offending someone.
When Wilde interviews him for a job, she tells him about sexual submission, and he all but leaps for it. This is after some of the most strained “woke police”/“Gen Z are so anxious and afraid” dialogue I’ve ever heard, and that’s (unfortunately) saying something. I Want Your Sex goes off the rails early, when Araki falls into the same trap as so many of his peers: his characters recite talking points, they don’t have conversations. The language of the Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy was certainly arch, but it was never this didactic or superficial. One joke after another falls flat, and another curious mistake reveals itself: Araki has foregone underscoring here, just like so many other contemporary movies and television shows. The orchestral scores and pop song soundtracks that were integral to films made before 2015 are out of vogue this decade, and it’s easy to see why: syrupy strings and wacky! zany! music sounds ridiculous, out of place, and unnecessary to people below a certain age, just as the obviously artificial studio sets of Classic Hollywood have only grown more and more Brechtian.
What’s left is a nowhere film, one that doesn’t even touch the toes of Nowhere, Araki’s masterpiece. The underwritten and out-of-touch social commentary is one thing, but you can only forgive so many bad jokes that suck the air out of the theater. I saw I Want Your Sex this past weekend, when nearly every other theater in the Charles was either playing The Odyssey or the new Spider-Man; you could hear the cries of Ithaca and the booming brass of the MCU through the walls, only emphasizing the enervating lack of underscoring. There were a half dozen people there, and the only time anyone was moved one way or the other was when Hoffman’s long-suffering best friend/secret admirer (Chase Sui Wonders) started making out with Wilde. The two women in the row below me jumped up and down, but of course the moment is ruined when Hoffman panics and his neuroses once again get in the way. There would be no glorious union here tonight, just more creaky plotting and stale satire from a filmmaker who’s simply too out of touch to make a convincing movie about young people.
All of the talking points in I Want Your Sex are five years out of date: Gen Z isn’t having sex, they’re anxious, they’re prudish, they’re scared, they’re willfully ignorant, blah blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH!!! Hey man I’m with you, the world needs as much provocative cinema as it can get, but this is far from provocative. I Want Your Sex does look great, with crisp images and candy saturation provided by cinematographer Tucker Korte, and while Araki isn’t at his best by any means, his particular sensibility is clearly legible here—this isn’t a film that could’ve been made by anyone else. Still, one hopes that Araki continues making features while he still can, because there’s no reason he can’t make his best work in his 70s. I’d leave the teenagers behind, but maybe that’s asking too much.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @NARCFILM
