Cooper Hoffman

I WANT YOUR SEX: good, naughty fun

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Photo caption: Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in I WANT YOUR SEX. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

In Gregg Araki’s raucous sex comedy I Want Your Sex, Eliot (Cooper Hoffman) is a schlub of a recent college grad, who seems to be surprised to find even entry level employment. His first real job is as a gofer for the trendy celebrity artist Erika (Olivia Wilde), who wastes no time in putting Eliot ill-at-ease. Erika is forceful and dominant, and she enjoys the power of making others uncomfortable . Although Erika is way out of Eliot’s league, she shockingly invites him to have sex with her, and the two begin a nominally consensual fling.

Erika is his boss, rich and beautiful enough to attract any sex partner. Eliot is broke and frustrated by a co-called girlfriend who finds sex distasteful and doesn’t really like him. Despite the inappropriate power dynamic, Eliot becomes an enthusiastic participant, even when the sex is humiliating and degrading. There’s no reciprocity, but it works for him. Eliot finds and embraces his submissive side.

Rarely has a movie character surrendered more agency than Elliot. Whatever Eliot has gleaned from his college experience, it is not confidence. In every way, Eliot is the wildebeest to Erika’s rapacious lioness.

But Erika’s egotism is toxic, and her cruelty is boundless. Erika’s demands become more and more extreme, Eliot’s addiction to her becomes more unhealthy and Erika finally blows up all his relationships, leaving Eliot in a puddle of vulnerability – all the way to one hilarious epilogue, and then another.

Gregg Araki is a playful filmmaker, and I Want Your Sex is a very funny movie. Most of the humor comes from Erika’s behavior being so outrageous, Elliot’s submission being so clearly unwise, and the sex so continuously in-your-face. I loved Araki’s digs at the Gen Z proclivity to overthink and angst their way OUT of having sex. There’s even a witty homage to Sunset Boulevard.

Araki is best-known for his brilliant and searing masterpiece, the pioneering queer coming of age film Mysterious Skin. In his Mysterious Skin, White Bird in a Blizzard, and I Want Your Sex, Araki explores the ambiguity of sex; he makes his audiences cringe at the inappropriateness of sexual awakenings that his protagonists embrace. And, as in I Want Your Sex and his trippy sex romp Kaboom, Araki enjoys filling ninety minutes with non-stop sex – all in good, naughty fun.

Yehuda Duenyas is credited as the intimacy coordinator, and they must have been the busiest member of the crew.

I Want Your Sex wouldn’t work without Olivia Wilde’s fully committed performance as a sexually insatiable, narcissistic sociopath.. Cooper Hoffman is perfect as a character who matter-of-factually describes himself as a “weak man”. As in Licorice Pizza, he’s good as a guy who bobs along on the currents of others.

The supporting cast is very good, especially Chase Sui Wonders as Eliot’s best friend Apple and Mason Gooding as Elliot’s workplace pal Zap, who is infinitely more suave and commonsensical than Elliot. Daveed Diggs is fun as Erika’s supercilious assistant and craven co-conspirator Viktor. Charli XCX is funny as Eliot’s supposed girlfriend Minerva. Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville make cameos as police detectives,

Gen Z can watch I Want Your Sex instead of having actual sex. The rest of us can just enjoy the ribald laughs. I Want Your Sex releases into theaters this weekend.

LICORICE PIZZA: when nine years is a big age difference

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Photo caption: Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim in LICORICE PIZZA. Courtesy of MGM.

The entertaining coming of age story Licorice Pizza has a lot going for it – the originality of an age mismatch, two fresh and interesting lead actors and a 1973 time capsule of the San Fernando Valley. A little too much length and an odd segment with Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters keep this from being among the best films of the year.

Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is a successful child actor who, at fifteen, is aging out of his marketability; nevertheless, he has stashed his earnings and can’t pass up the chance to build a business mini-empire, whether in waterbeds or pinball machines. Gary is a bundle of showbiz charm and ambition, and he is always “on”.

Gary’s ambition contrasts with the 24-year-old Alana (Alana Haim), who is drifting through deadend jobs. Amused, and then intrigued, by Gary’s chutzpah, she starts driving him around (he’s too young for a driver’s license) and becomes entangled in his schemes, intermittently questioning why “I’m hanging out with Gary and his 15-year-old friends“.

Alana is open to experiences, and flirts with a more age-appropriate actor pal of Gary’s, enjoys meeting much older celebrity in a Ventura Blvd showbiz bar, and moons after a young politician. Still there’s Gary – will he become her friend – or her soulmate?

Licorice Pizza is the creation of accomplished writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice). The vibe of Licorice Pizza is so specific to the period and place that I was surprised to learn that Anderson, who did grow up in the San Fernando Valley, was only three years old in 1973.

Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in LICORICE PIZZA. Courtesy of MGM.

Licorice Pizza is entirely a character-driven story and its most successful moments rest on the performances of newcomers Haim and Hoffman. Haim excels at portraying Alana’s moxie. Gary is a force of nature, and Hoffman captures his knack for ever acting as the adult hustler, except when his teenage emotional immaturity peeks out.

Cooper Hoffman is the son of Anderson’s frequent collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman. Philip Seymour Hoffman had an early-career minor part in Hard Eight, broke through with his supporting performance in Boogie Nights, and starred or co-starred in Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and The Master.

Alana Haim is a musician in the sister band Haim. Here’s the pretty cool, 3:57 one-shot video of their pop hit Want You Back and a live festival cover of the Peter Green Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well. Paul Thomas Anderson has directed nine of Haim’s videos (but not that Want You Back video that I just linked). Haim’s real life parents and sisters play her family in Licorice Pizza.

Sean Penn, showing a sense of humor for the first time since Fast Times at Ridgemont High, is very good as a veteran Hollywood celebrity, as is Tom Waits as his drinking buddy.

Indie filmmaker Benny Safdie is excellent as the non-fictional elected official Joel Wachs. (I essentially grew up in campaign offices like the ones perfectly re-created in Licorice Pizza (and the one in Taxi Driver where Cybill Shepherd volunteered).

In one disjointed segment, an over-the-top Bradley Cooper sends up the by-all-counts-scumbag Jon Peters, who washes over Gary and Alana with a tsunami of self-absorbed outrageousness. The tone of the Jon Peters scenes just doesn’t mesh with the rest of the movie and only serves to jar the audience out of the story.

I was expecting Licorice Pizza to be among the very best films of the year, so I was a little disappointed. I still enjoyed it overall, but it failed to engage The Wife, who thought that the oft-repeated motif of characters running didn’t work.

Gary would be 63 today, and Alana 72. I’m pretty sure that they’re not together as a couple, but that they have lived very interesting lives.