"Boss in Distress" and "Finish the Night": Has sex returned to the cinema? Sort of
New releases "Boss in Distress" by Gregg Araki and "Finish the Night" by Will Gluck are hitting theaters. Despite their provocative themes, both films ultimately preach more restraint than liberation.
Olivia Wilde is a successful artist who hires an assistant 20 years her junior (Cooper Hoffman) and immediately seduces him into a sadomasochistic relationship in Gregg Araki's new film "Boss in Distress". Meanwhile, in Will Gluck's "Finish the Night", there is a couple who meet and break up over the course of one night on the streets of New York, with the resentment between them only growing before it turns into affection.
Both of these films, currently showing in theaters, are films that in the past would have been labeled "sex comedies". Both are American films, and there is something cheeky about their very existence and their preoccupation not just with sex, but with horniness. They are also examples that despite the political correctness tendency to be offended by everything, cinema is becoming more explicit and bold, not less.
Often, re-watching old films brings the realization that "you couldn't make these today," which is an evasive way of saying that the old film presents outdated attitudes regarding equal treatment between the sexes, or a dismissive attitude toward people of a certain ethnic origin, or that it contains an excess of violence or sex. The assumption is that once upon a time, cinema was allowed to say and show everything, and as we progress through the years, the grip of censorship, conservatism, and political correctness forces films to be less explicit. Well, that's a mistake. A film that seems provocative and non-compliant to us today was just as much so when it was originally released.
"Boss in Distress" is the comeback of Araki, who was one of the most prominent and bold directors of the American queer wave of the 90s, a kind of American Almodóvar who combined camp and sex. In his new film, which in English is simply called "I Want Your Sex" (after a George Michael song that does not appear on the soundtrack), he turns to a mainstream audience with a satire that tries to break taboos. The film is supposed to be a trigger-filled minefield for a generation that is endlessly preoccupied with gender and class power dynamics, and with the concept of consent in sexual relations. It is also a satire on the world of modern art, where art itself has no value, except for the degree of the artists' fame.
Wilde, who is now also starring in "Don't Worry Darling", which she directed, indeed demonstrates with these two films that she lives up to her name. It seems that Araki, whose films in the 90s and 2000s already challenged censors, is now turning to shock bourgeois straight viewers with a film that, for all the sex in it, is ultimately more old-fashioned than bold.
"Finish the Night" is supposedly another juicy romantic comedy by Will Gluck, whose previous film "Anyone But You", with Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, was a huge hit. What is interesting and strange about "Finish the Night" is that it is actually a futuristic film set in a reality where sex between an unmarried man and woman has been outlawed, and a subcutaneous chip alerts the police if they get into bed. To release the hormonal pressure from unmarried America, the government allowed one night where sex is permitted. This is the night in which this film takes place, where our two protagonists discover they have no one to sleep with, while the whole city around them is busy with sexual madness.
This plot starting point is the basis for a light hormonal romantic comedy, not a terrifying dystopian social drama. It's as if the filmmakers are shrugging their shoulders and saying, "You realize this is what's going to happen here, right?", an indifferent acceptance of a draconian sexual dictatorship that is the inevitable next step after the current administration in the United States outlawed abortion in some states, made it difficult to obtain contraceptives, and is fighting the LGBT community.
Before we accuse Will Gluck and Universal of political indifference, and perhaps of normalizing dictatorial laws, it is worth remembering that this situation already existed. In America, an unmarried couple was indeed forbidden from getting into bed or kissing for more than two minutes; it happened in the cinema. From the 30s to the end of the 60s, American cinema operated under conservative censorship laws that limited representations of sex. Perhaps that is why Gluck's film constantly shows sets of films and series being shot on the streets of New York, to remind us that it is only a movie, and cinema has always been more conservative than reality.
Ultimately, just like "Boss in Distress", it is a film about sex. Or at least a film where the libido of the characters is what drives the plot, and the use of humor and nudity is supposed to give them a cheeky and subversive edge. But the truth is that both are films that make sex something off-putting — in one film the hero bleeds, in the other the hero vomits. For all the fact that they are a kind of sex comedy, both actually preach living with a little more control over the libido, to button up the buttons of the neckline. And yet, when we encounter these films in ten years, we will say about them too that you couldn't make these today.
