This steamy queer romance between ice hockey rivals is packed with constant shots of muscular bottoms in fancy hotel rooms. But a bit more character development or emotional investment wouldn’t go amiss
I suspect that Chala Hunter is still on a recuperative retreat somewhere. Until about May, I would think. For she was the intimacy coordinator on Heated Rivalry and she has earned a break.
For those not aware: intimacy coordinators gained prominence in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, when assorted testimonies from actors (largely female) made public and unignorable the shocking fact that actors (largely male) and directors (largely male) will often (largely always) try to get away with more than has been contracted for once they are naked with A N Other person. An intimacy coordinator is there to help arrange scenes and advocate for actors. Think of them as somewhere between a bureaucrat and a contraceptive.
Second of all, Heated Rivalry has a lot of sex in it. Specifically, sex between men. Even more specifically, sex between young men who are ice hockey stars and bitter rivals on the rink but irresistibly drawn to each other off it. They are Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), a golden child whose talent has been nurtured by fond parents from the get-go and whose mother is his manager, signing him up for more lucrative brand deals and commercial shoots every time he sits down for a rest; and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), a product of the more brutal Soviet system, whose mother is gone, whose father drives his son relentlessly for the glory of Russia and whose brother is a feckless waster, sponging off his sibling while also despising him for being gay.
