HollyShorts Special 7: The Intimacy Coordinator Review
“What’s the safe word?” – Kate
The role of an Intimacy Coordinator is a relatively new one in the world of film making. For those who don’t know, this is the person who makes sure that in any intimate scenes being filmed, the actors’ boundaries are strictly observed. They choreograph the scenes in a way that nobody feels unduly exploited, and that consent within the scenes is given.
It all sounds safe and reassuring. No threat here.
But what if the Intimacy Coordinator herself has an unhealthy obsession with sex, and it in fact an addict? What if this soft spoken, reassuring person on set trusted with guarding performers at their most vulnerable, protecting their privacy and dignity, is a porn watching, Tinder-swiping nymphomaniac when she’s not working?
These are the questions posed in The Intimacy Coordinator showing at this year’s HollyShorts Film Festival, where Louisa Connoly-Burnham pulls double duty as both director and lead. What’s even more remarkable is that Connoly-Burnham also wrote the script and is one of the producers.
The film takes an unflinching look at obsession and its effects upon the sufferer. How it creeps into other aspects of their life, their job, their time, their family relations.
Kate is the lead character, and seems to be the model of propriety on set, very prim, empathic and business-like. However, some cracks begin to show themselves. A glance that lasts a second or two too long at an actor in a scene, inserting herself into a rehearsal where she insists that the actor removes his shirt. Ethics and professional boundaries are clearly crumbling as the traditional tropes of the misuse of power and control become reversed.
In her private life, Kate is attending a therapy group with other sex addicts, but as soon as she’s alone, the darker side of the internet and transient one night stands become her solace. How long can she keep her worlds apart before everything comes crashing down?
Louisa Connoly-Burnham gives an astonishing performance that elicits a sympathetic response when Kate is dealing with her offhand mother on the phone and shows us a vulnerability and shame of her own, realising she’s no longer in control and no help is forthcoming. On the other hand, she is effectively unsettling and creepy as Kate becomes more emboldened in her actions. The power of her multi-faceted performance reminds me in some aspects of Inde Navarrette’s performance as being ultimately, helplessly out of control in Obsession, especially in the final shots.
Overall, the unique talents of Louisa Connoly-Burnham have given us a disturbing psychological thriller that deserves to be expanded for a wider theatrical release.
Rob Rating = 9