Gregg Araki played a major role in defining the exuberance of queer cinema in the 1990s. His work was unapologetically sex-positive, even as his characters’ lives unraveled in pursuit of carnal pleasure. More than a decade removed from his last feature film and seven years removed from his passable TV series Now Apocalypse, Araki is back with the remarkably unsubtle I Want Your Sex.

The film starts off with a nod to Sunset Boulevard, complete with a body floating in a pool, before embarking on a flashback. Elliott (Cooper Hoffman) is a young, fairly unambitious art school graduate looking for a job so he can finally pay rent to his best friend Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). He finds employment at a studio belonging to Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), an artist who’s been coasting on her early success for years.

Erika’s interest in Elliott stems largely from a sexual nature, transforming her subordinate from employee to personal kink dispenser. For his part, Elliott really enjoys being submissive. His relationship with his girlfriend Minerva (Charli XCX) is on the rocks, the ambitious grad student having grown tired of his antics. Elliott is putty for Erika’s hands, and he sort of likes it?

Araki has crafted a messy playground to explore power dynamics. Erika’s professional authority over Elliott renders any relationship between them highly inappropriate, but there’s another layer at play. Countless men, including Elliott, fantasize about dominant women. They like to give up the reins, often treating women as kink dispensers in the process.

Araki’s screenplay, co-written with Karley Sciortino, is very funny. Wilde largely carries the film, adding a lot of nuance to Erika that the screenplay wasn’t terribly interested in. None of the characters are explored very thoroughly, including Elliott. Hoffman does an admirable job in the lead role, but Araki is more interested in torturing Elliott than giving us any perspective.

I Want Your Sex is very entertaining, Araki’s best film in years. It’s also not a very compelling commentary on BDSM or the art industry. Araki obviously finds it fun to explore the taboos of workplace sexual harassment. There are a lot of laughs to be found, but there’s something missing at the core of the feature.

The more time we spend watching Elliott’s awkward interactions with women, namely Erika, Apple, and Minerva, the less compelling he comes across. We don’t know Elliott’s professional ambition at all. We know he likes being dominated but struggles against the clearly stated confines of his illegal affair. It feels like there is a lot left on the table within the brisk 90-minute runtime, particularly with regard to Apple and Minerva. Charli XCX makes the most of a very limited role, leading one to naturally wonder why she wasn’t given something meatier.

Araki did manage to provoke some thought on the nature of workplace sexual harassment. Elliott’s status as somewhat of a wet noodle dulls the sympathy that one might have for someone in his plight. It shouldn’t be relevant that he sort of liked it, but that uncomfortable spot is usually where Araki does his best work. Here, he largely settles for good-enough work. I Want Your Sex is a fun movie. It’s just hard to walk out of the theater without the notion that this could have all been better.

i want your sex