Bringing sexy back: how Hollywood suddenly got horny again | Movies

TThe success of Hit Man, the new Richard Linklater comedy that has garnered rave reviews heralding the emergence of Glen Powell as a bona fide movie star, largely comes down to one factor: illicit attraction. It's the kind of thing that fuels fantasies and much of human behavior, whether we want to admit it or not.

There's the appeal of Gary Powells, a nerdy thirty-something psychology professor in New Orleans, moonlighting as an undercover hitman impersonator, trying on different, more confident identities for the size. There's the long-standing, vicarious thrill of watching ethically dubious protagonists embark on a well-oiled criminal adventure. And above all, there's the heat between Gary, disguised as a suave hitman, and Adria Arjonas Madison, a potential client with whom he has the kind of identity-incinerating sex that leads him to confine himself to a townhouse and making unwise choices.

Whether the chemistry or the sex moments in Hit Man, still relatively rare for the big screen these days, excite you, is up to you and your screen of choice (the film, unfortunately, only got 'a short theatrical release before its release on Netflix this weekend). But the fact that Hit Man tries to do it with panache, taut mind games and movie star charisma makes the film a throwback, of sorts, to the sexy, star-studded Hollywood films of old. The film evokes not only Hollywood's long-standing fascination with ruthless mercenaries, but also the zany films of the 1940s, the lush romantic comedies of the '90s and, in Gary's stunned lust and Madison's inscrutable motivations, recalls the 80s erotic thriller Body Heat. Hit Man knowingly plays with the fantastical: what people imagine a hitman to be, how two characters are transformed by sex, and the type of warm, sweet hyper-skill that can only be realized on screen . (The handsome, rugged Powell, for what he's worth, is never convincing as a computer nerd.)

Hit Man is the latest film this year to suggest that Hollywood is trying to bring sexiness, or even real sex, back to the big screen, in an age of superhero fatigue, years of relative absence of sex on screen and routine box office misfortunes. Powell is coming off a starring role opposite Sydney Sweeney in the hit Anybody But You, the rare R-rated romantic comedy that grossed $219 million through word of mouth and TikTok; this summer, it's hell that leads Twists, a standalone sequel to the '90s disaster movie that, as one Letterboxd reviewer memorably put it, teaches that good storm chasers must want to fuck the storm. (You don't face your fears. You ride them, Powell says in the trailer, suggesting a faithful adaptation). Love Lies Bleeding, starring Kristen Stewart and Katy OBrian, gives neo-noir a sapphic twist, two sweaty female bodies entwined in various states of undress.

The mere suggestion of a threesome between tennis players Tashi (Zendaya), Art (Mike Faist), and Patrick (Josh OConnor) in Luca Guadagnino's Lustful Challengers sent the Internet into a tizzy and theaters into sellouts. discounts on tickets for three people Upon release. Anne Hathaway, who rose to fame in the mid-budget theatrical sunset, has lent her talents to Amazon's The Idea of ​​You, a high-end adaptation of One Direction fan fiction starring a 40-year-old mother from Los Angeles has a taboo affair with a fictional Harry Styles. A similar premise, a famous young man dating a middle-aged mother, is presented with Netflix brilliance in A family matterstarring Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman, due later this month.

Judging by the screams at the screening of The Idea of ​​You that I attended, among a host of other measures, the culture needs it. Although 2023 has been a relatively good year for sex on screen, from Poor Things to Saltburn to All of Us Strangers to a wave of raunchy R-rated comedies, sex in cinema has been in decline for more than a year. decade, due to the demise of low-budget adult films and the dominance of four-quadrant superhero fare. The number of sex scenes in American films in the 2010s was the lowest in decades, tied with that of the 1960s, according to a study by Blacklists' Kate Hagen using IMDb data. A economist studyexamining sexual content (excluding assault) in the 250 top-grossing films per year, found a 40% decrease since 2000.

In other words, the bar is low enough that most of these newer films rely on the mere suggestion of sex and the simple prioritization of desire, rather than actual graphic sex scenes. The Fall Guy, Hollywood's most recent box office disappointment, was a sexy pyrotechnic spectacle, car chases, elaborate stunts for Ryan Gosling's stuntman character to win back his lost love (Emily Blunt) without any real sex. Challengers arguably contained less actual sex than its marketing material sold, but the film reveled in its energy. The characters were sweaty; Guadagnino served up photos of his stars' bodies in motion on the club-ready score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross; and in the climax of the film's long-simmering desire, a windstorm seems to bring together all the lost newspapers in the New York suburbs. The film doesn't depict real fucking, but it certainly fuck a frantic brewing of tension capable of cheer you up until 5 a.m..

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Similarly, Amazons The Idea of ​​You is fueled more by the imagination of illicit sex than its actual depiction. Like Hit Man, The Idea of ​​You also feels like a throwback: a decently made romance on the budget to match (bootlegged 1D tracks included) that deals seriously with the vagaries of celebrity fantasy romance, with a real movie star . Hathaways, with the unlikely name Solene, may be impeccably glamorous, but she's also in her forties, the age at which Hollywood still notoriously sends women out to pasture. And yet, her maturity, her experience, her lack of interest in the spotlight attracts the attention of a much younger star, who takes her to penthouse suites, VIP areas and French villas, with a few steamy kisses in mixed lingerie. , directed by Michael Showalter, cleverly mixes the lightness of the airport novel with just the right amount of edge, dispelling the myth of supposedly post-primary women; a feast of longing glances and passionate kisses, plus a little comment.

Although the attractions of these films may be illicit, unusual, and besieged by (often misogynistic) online judgment in The Idea of ​​You, between a killer and someone capable of hiring one in Hit Man, complicating a tangle of formal and informal relationships in Challengers, they are not really explicit or transgressive. It's not the flaws (nor the moral panic) of the Fifty Shades of Gray films, nor the gratification and enthusiasm that divide Emma Stones, unapologetically sexual Bella Baxter in Poor Things. These decidedly exciting films aim for simple and, above all, straightforward entertainment, not so much pushing the boundaries as trying to court a large audience hungry to watch. That the charged little moments of intimacy in Challengers, the way Patrick looks at Tashi, Art's copious shared dusting, and Patrick's churros have become touchstones and shared audience memes seems to prove that doing this level of work well he excitement, a relatively basic work of films, is always a difficult task. revelation.

They may or may not work, in terms of titillation; I found Challengers and The Idea of ​​You more amusing, in their unsubtle pleasures and beautiful leads, than erotic. But the simple act of predicting desire, of aiming for the ineffable and inexplicable feelings of attraction, gives itself something to celebrate. Coincidence of timing or not, there is an audience of moviegoers ready to embrace these depictions of sex, if Hollywood were willing to sell them.