SXSW Review: ‘Make It Look Real’ is an Eye-Opening Look at the Role and Importance of an Intimacy Coordinator

The role of the intimacy coordinator is relatively new in comparison to the century-plus history of cinema, but that only underscores its importance. It’s a popular subject of conversation, stemming from its use in television series like Bridgerton to cases where it’s not utilized, like in the sex-heavy newly-minted Oscar Best Picture winner Anora. While one documentary can’t hope to capture this entire industry sector, Make It Look Real does an impressive job as it focuses on one particular Australian production and how it’s employed there.

The film at the heart of Make It Look Real is Tightrope, from director Kieran Darcy-Smith, whose past credits include Wish You Were Here, starring Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, and Antony Starr. Darcy-Smith is working with intimacy coordinator Claire Warden on this project, and Warden’s conversations are most frequently with lead actress Sarah Roberts, who wants to understand the framing for each scene that will require some degree of intimacy, whether it’s simulated sex, a touch, or something more suggestive that still needs to be performed in a way that’s simultaneously convincing to the audience and keeps all actors on set safe during the process of filming.

Seeing what an intimacy coordinator actually does on a specific set is the best possible way for audiences to understand what it means and comprehend that there’s a reasoning behind it, which makes this film’s focus on the production of another film very effective. Warden has a gentleness to her that is absolutely critical to her ability to get her job done, and she speaks in a way that indicates a desire to be delicate and considerate in every moment. She comes armed with an array of colors of body tape and other workarounds meant to maintain onscreen illusions while allowing actors not to have to fully recreate everything, and she has the power to dismiss all non-essential personnel when some degree of privacy is needed to film a given scene.

Where this documentary elevates itself beyond its particular focus is in its creative assembly of audio clips from well-known actresses about their own experiences without intimacy coordinators. Hearing recognizable voices that are usually given top billing in big-budget blockbusters and box office hits talk about how they surely would have benefited from the protections offered by this new advent in the industry is the strongest possible argument for its necessity, and it also offers contexts to moments audiences will surely know and remember that they’ll now learn were also grueling and potentially problematic as they were being brought to life.

Bringing in those other stories while remaining centered on this Australian film works well since it highlights the universal nature and application of this field, and how its presence is meant to better the whole process rather than hinder it. Roberts’ research into her role leads her to discover that many sex scenes from films have made their way to pornography websites, and she’s determined not to make something that could be exploited in that way. Director Kate Blackmore’s feature directorial debut is a productive exploration of the way in which crafting something believable for a viewing audience requires great care, and just as sets, costumes, accents, and so much else have to perfectly calibrated, so too does the energy that goes into a scene that’s revealing and intimate. This film’s very direct title speaks to its transparency, and while those who might decry intimacy coordination as a wasteful “woke” concept surely won’t ever find their way to see this film, it offers a thoroughly worthwhile lesson that it manages to effectively transmit in just 77 short but extremely informative minutes.

Movie Rating: 7/10