They’re back! After seven years of playing it safe, the film industry is returning to sex comedies. Stirred by superhero fatigue and a rejection of media moralism, this shift got a boost from the box office hit Anyone But You (2023) and the critical acclaim of Anora (2024) which scored Mikey Madison an Oscar.
Now, Olivia Wilde is riding the racy romp wave. In addition to exhibiting her range and comic timing on and off camera, the actress/director of The Invite (2026) literally reveals her cheeky screen presence in I Want Your Sex (2026).
Despite the definitive title, recent grad Elliott Bell (Cooper Hoffman) has hand tattoos that timidly ask, “Yes? No?” The 23-year-old’s question is answered when he lands a job at a “hipster sweatshop” where he almost immediately starts trysting with shock artist Erika Tracy (Wilde). Not only is she more than a decade his senior, the self-professed “pretentious whore from hell” is his boss.
From the first shot of Erika floating in a pool, the paramour/kept man dynamic in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) is referenced. While Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) spells the demise of Joe Gillis (William Holden), Erika helps Elliot live—out his deepest and darkest fantasies.
“Sure, Erika led me down the path of my destruction,” Elliot tells funnyman Johnny Knoxville playing it straight. “But at the end of the day, everything I did was always my own choice.” The zoomer refreshingly takes agency for his power-imbalanced relationship with an older millennial. Opposed to the Gen X-Gen Z unaccountability in After the Hunt (2025), Gen Y’s Erika also owns up to her actions before the end of the flick.
Along the way, she has plenty to say about the generation gap. “Gen Z is all about FOMO and yet you’re willing to miss out on the sexual prime of your life,” she tells Elliot. “What is with this bummer veil cast over everything fun or exciting? Not to mention the dick-bags on TikTok who are like ‘don’t hold hands in front of me, I didn’t consent to that’…Your entire generation is a bunch of whiny repressed weaklings. You’re all dying to fuck but you’re too chickenshit to admit it. Aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
When not pulling Elliot out of his personal comfort zone, the provocative protagonist waxes on her profession with cutting observations like “Contemporary art is a scam. The real art is convincing people you’re making something meaningful and complex when it’s really just arbitrary masturbation,” and “Well, you know I hate criticism, especially when it’s accurate.”
While Wilde’s nuanced dominatrix swings from levity to vulnerability as effortlessly as she goes from pleather to nudity, Hoffman’s Elliot “mentally and emotionally” subs for his disinterested girlfriend (Charli xcx) and rooms with his closeted bestie (Chase Sui Wonders), who ponders, “if only there was a way to have sex without the whole penis thing involved.” Questioning her sexuality further, she asks Elliot, “do you ever fake orgasms?” His answer: “Well, I’m a dude.”
Penned by co-producers Karley Sciortino and New Queer Cinema director Gregg Araki, the clever and concise script is full of witty quips and sight gags (Daveed Diggs is hilarious without saying a word). For all of its candy-colored satire, the 90-minute movie offers fleshed-out characters and dramatic twists. Indeed, the threesome scene confirms BDSM comedy runs on underlying pain.
“I met a girl recently who kind of rocked my world, sexually, you know, speaking. And she’s changed me in ways that I probably can’t even comprehend yet,” explains Elliot. “But sex is a drug, man. The highs are so intense; they bring you to such a euphoric, out-of-body place. It’s like you leave reality and all your troubles behind, which makes the lows feel fucking bottomless—such black, hopeless despair that will make you do anything for another fix. Nothing else matters. It’s like any other addiction, I guess. You know, you have to learn how to control it, otherwise it just winds up controlling you.”
Because Elliot and Erika are so likable, romantics will root for them to overcome their obstacles, especially since the seemingly bold and open Erika downplays her strong feelings for making art and Elliot. After he confesses, “I think about you all the time, like from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. It’s like I can’t change the channel,” he probes, “What we have, it’s special, right?” Instead of being honest, she gives the guarded reply, “Sure, but it’s strictly a sex thing.” He counters with “You say sex is everything so?” So she says, “Yeah, well sex is everything. It’s also nothing.”
Per her confounding contradictions, Wilde’s Erika is an addictive antiheroine who has intoxicating chemistry with the naturally charismatic Hoffman. Equally brilliant are costume designers Monica Chamberlain and Arianne Phillips. If the Academy did its job well, I Want Your Sex would receive Oscar recognition for Costume Design, Hair and Makeup, Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Picture.
More likely, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack will nab an Adapted Screenplay nomination for translating Cesc Gay’s Spanish sex comedy The People Upstairs (2020) into The Invite. This English-language version follows film adaptations from South Korea (2025), France (2024), Switzerland (2024), and Italy (2022).
Based on Gay’s 2014 play Els veïns de dalt, the A24 release is limited to a four-member cast and one location. As such, Wilde (who does double-duty as lead actress and director) provides stylistic shots meant to visually enhance the finite set. Although a tad too aesthetic, Jade Healy’s décor appears lived-in.
Conversely, many of the interiors in I Want Your Sex (apart from Erika’s believable studio and house) look like artificial apartments from a 1980s soap. It’s one of the minor shortcomings of an otherwise outstanding movie which includes animated flourishes that detract more than add to the story. But these issues, as well as a few continuity-challenged cuts, are barely noticeable compared to The Invite’s intentionally annoying score.
With the exception of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen Suite No. 2 – II. Habanera” (1875) which briefly plays, the original music by composer Devonté Hynes consists of a jarring cello that’s supposed to echo the plot’s jarring prospect of group sex. Instead of underlining the uncomfortable situation on screen, the intrusive audio adds to the audience’s discomfort.
Araki, on the other hand, seamlessly adds pre-existing boundary-pushing songs to enjoyable effect. In addition to directly pulling synth sounds from George Michael’s chart-topper “I Want Your Sex” (1987), theme-related tunes like “Bad Boys Get Spanked” (1981) by The Pretenders pop up in the background. The film also tips its hat to other salacious staples from the past, including the erotic flick 9 ½ Weeks (1986), the Harold Robbins potboiler Never Love a Stranger (1948), and a Madonna T-shirt that Elliot puts to good use.
The Invite reaches further back to the 1893 play A Woman of No Importance as it recalls the Oscar Wilde quote, “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” The title card text effectively launches the film’s spouse-swapping scenario between a pair of swingers (Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton) and a complacent married couple (Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde).
Because comedy comes from truth, Rogen’s realistic portrayal of a burnt-out teacher makes him the ensemble’s MVP. As his neurotic wife, an over-the-top Wilde acts like Annie Hall with ADHD. She’s good, but a bit exhausting to watch for 107 minutes. Thankfully, Cruz’s calmer persona strikes a much needed balance. Although saddled with some exposition, she offers lowkey humor via her dietary restrictions: “For me, no gluten, no dairy, no meat, no sugar.” Similarly in I Want Your Sex, Elliot’s co-worker (Mason Gooding) announces, “I am not doing meat, soy, dairy, gluten, or sugar this week. Or corn.”
Both films are funny, though Araki’s rom-com is fresher in every sense. Nevertheless, there’s a push to get Wilde an Oscar nomination for The Invite despite delivering a stronger and more memorable performance in I Want Your Sex. Even so, either are worth watching over Christopher Nolan’s virtue-signaling superhero spin on The Odyssey (2026). Regardless of budget size, excellent writing and well-cast actors are a movie’s most stunning special effect.