Gregg Araki: 5 Essential Films to Get to Know the I Want Your Sex Provocateur
From childhood trauma to sexual awakenings, partying teens to cult leaders, Gregg Araki has done it all.
Araki is a filmmaker whose name is only really known within a certain circle of cinephiles. The director has made a career for himself making alt-queer cinema, and yet despite having 13 feature films to his name, few can name any. Hopefully the release of his new movie, I Want Your Sex, will change that. His new venture stars Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, and musician-turned-actress Charlie XCX, and has therefore begun to draw more mainstream attention to Araki.
I Want Your Sex makes a great entry point into his unique brand of storytelling. So, if you're new to Araki's films, we’ve rounded up a nifty little movie starter pack.
Gregg Araki’s latest movie, I Want Your Sex, is easily the director's most accessible.
Some of this stems from the cast, which includes Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Johnny Knoxville, and Charlie XCX. Araki has always been good at getting famous faces to sign on for his projects, but this is potentially his most high-profile cast yet. The tone of the film is also on the lighter side, the film falling somewhere between Risky Business and Wild Things.
Although very well known for his queer-focused projects, I Want Your Sex sees Araki focus on the kink community instead. The story finds Cooper Hoffman’s intern Elliot hired by provocative artist Erika Tracy (played by Wilde) to be her sex muse. The movie then explores the BDSM relationship that begins between the pair, while also throwing in a third-act murder mystery for good measure.
Unashamedly loud, from its use of eye-wateringly vibrant colours, attention-grabbing costumes, and outlandish set-pieces, I Want Your Sex is one heck of a way to be introduced to Araki’s filmmaking style.
If I Want Your Sex is Gregg Araki’s most accessible film, then Mysterious Skin is perhaps his least.
A heavy watch from start to finish, Mysterious Skin follows the different paths of two childhood friends after experiencing horrific trauma. One becomes a gay hustler, the other obsesses about U.F.Os and alien abductions. Their different paths are the young men’s methods of coping with their past, with one fully aware of what happened, the other having fully repressed it. As the pair find each other as young adults, they have no choice but to confront their shared abuse.
Mysterious Skin is a gruelling watch. It's the type of movie that you only really need to watch once. It is, however, masterfully made. Araki pays great care and attention to how he tells this story and is careful to never belittle the emotional journey of his lead characters.
Featuring stunning performances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet as the central characters, Mysterious Skin is best ventured into fully prepared for emotional devastation.
Kaboom is a - deep breath - coming-of-age, science-fiction, teen sex comedy mystery that follows the sexual awakening of a group of college kids and a bizarre cult. If that rounding up of genres already sounds like a lot, it's because it is. This is a film really unlike any other.
Lead character, Smith, announces their sexuality as undeclared, before going on an adventure that enables him to sample a variety of different lifestyles. At the same time, he is haunted by visions of a dead red-haired girl, animal masks, and strange messages stating he is the chosen son. There are cult members, nudist beaches, and the threat of nuclear bombs... Kaboom genuinely throws everything into the mix.
Despite all of its insanity, it still manages to entertain, and it is most definitely a film you’ll never forget.
Released in 1997, the cast of Nowhere is insanely star-powered. While it might not be at the Charli XCX level of fame, it includes Ryan Phillippe, Heather Graham, Mena Suvari, and Denise Richards; the list goes on. One key cast member, who has been present in almost all of Araki’s work (including I Want Your Sex), is James Duval, better known as Frank in Donnie Darko. In Nowhere, Duval plays lead character Dark, and the story follows him having an existential crisis.
The film itself plays like Araki’s version of Dazed and Confused, following a group of LA teens as they attend a massive party. And in typical Araki tradition, Nowhere takes a deep dive into sexuality and provides representation of polyamory, bisexuality, and a whole lot more.
Considering its year of release, Nowhere was exceptionally progressive and ahead of its time, and it is likely that has made it an underseen gem.
Billed as ‘a heterosexual movie by Gregg Araki’, The Doom Generation is anything but.
The film once again stars James Duval and a pre-Scream Rose McGowan as teenage lovers who pick up a drifter, played by Johnathon Schaech. They then wind up on a road trip of sex, murder, and robberies as the arrival of Schaech’s character stirs up urges and feelings within the couple; it isn’t long before the newcomer becomes sexually entangled with them both.
The Doom Generation is one of Araki’s more sexually explicit movies, and its horniness is hard to deny. This is a movie steeped in sweat and bodily fluids, and so might be a step too far for some viewers. The overarching story is also pretty dark, Araki riffing on road movie thrillers such as True Romance while adding his own bleak spin.
By its final act, The Doom Generation leaves its fun elements behind and becomes a more harrowing and disturbing watch, but it is one of Araki’s best films, so really should not be missed.
