The Intimacy Coordinator: Film Review

Louisa Connolly-Burnham’s The Intimacy Coordinator is a well-directed and well-acted short that tackles uncomfortable and potent themes.

When they’re not, though, it could result in a story such as the one presented here, in which the main character tries to deal with her personal problems in rather unprofessional ways.

Writer-director Connolly-Burnham plays Kate, the titular intimacy coordinator, who, at the beginning, is working with actors Max (Kieron Moore) and Ella (Sophie Simnett) at a shoot, helping them with a sex scene. The moment she goes to the monitor and starts watching, though, it becomes clear that Kate enjoys her job a bit too much. In fact, she’s later seen at a support group admitting she’s a sex addict. But rather than trying to solve her problem and get better, she has sex both with a member of the group named Nigel (Alexander Arnold) and a bunch of other men and women. She also cries in the privacy of her flat, feeling empty and alone. Things get even worse, though, when she starts behaving weirdly at work, and Max becomes suspicious of her.

The Intimacy Coordinator could very well have demonised such a role in a film shoot, but thankfully, Connolly-Burnham seems to understand its importance very well, making it clear from the start that Kate is not the ideal intimacy coordinator. In fact, the short film ends up feeling a bit like a cautionary tale, telling the viewer that a job such as this should be taken for the right reasons and definitely not to satiate one’s sexual desires and kinks. Kate is not a horrible intimacy coordinator in theory, but as the story progresses, she starts to lose control, even admitting that the support group she’s in isn’t working at all.

The Intimacy Coordinator is ultimately a story about addiction, then, and about a woman who tries to channel said addiction through her work in inappropriate ways. And it’s also about someone who feels terribly alone and who uses sex to feel something; to try to establish brief, carnal and ultimately unsatisfying connections. Kate is gentle and kind at work – at least at first – but she doesn’t seem to have any friends, doesn’t have a partner, lives far away from her well-meaning but distant parents, and apparently has no life apart from her job and her casual sexual encounters. Her loneliness is ultimately her undoing, as well as her inability to control her addiction.

What’s worse, her actions not only damage her but also her work and other people. She turns an intimate scene in the movie she’s working on into a rather uncomfortable experience, doing what no intimacy coordinator should ever do: step in instead of the leading actress, “acting” alongside the former’s scene partner. And by the end, she doesn’t deal with the discovery of her secret support meetings very well. Even though she makes many mistakes, Kate ends up being a tragic figure and a good example of what could happen when someone with an addiction (or mental health issues in general) doesn’t get enough help.

Unfortunately, there’s one final twist that doesn’t really work, turning this suitably realistic drama into something a bit over-the-top. It doesn’t ruin the entire experience of watching The Intimacy Coordinator, but it does seem to have been included mainly to shock and not necessarily to say something interesting or at least coherent with the characterisation of Kate as a protagonist. Additionally, it makes the film end quite suddenly and not very satisfyingly at that. Nevertheless, it does include some striking imagery, including a shot of Kate with a pair of out-of-focus legs behind her, which makes it seem like she has a pair of bone-white horns protruding from her head.

Despite the tonal shift brought by the ending, though, The Intimacy Coordinator works. It works as an emotional and potent drama, as a character study of a damaged and lonely woman, as a good portrayal of what an actual intimacy coordinator should not be, and as an impressive example of what writer-director-star Louisa Connolly-Burnham is capable of doing. In fact, I would love to watch a feature film by her, tackling these sorts of subjects in a similarly intriguing and visually arresting way.

The Intimacy Coordinator will have its North American Premiere at Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival on August 4–9, 2026.