A SAFE DISTANCE
(The 2026 SXSW Film Festival runs March 12-18 in beautiful Austin, TX. Check out Chris Reed’s A Safe Distance movie review, fresh from the fest. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
Written by Aidan West and directed by Gloria Mercer—both making their feature debut and here adapting a 2021 short of the same title—A Safe Distance has the great virtue of narrative unpredictability which, coupled with fine performances from the two lead actresses, makes for a wholly engaging watch. Bethany Brown and Tandia Mercedes star as Alex and Kianna, women who find friendship, sexual attraction, and possibly love in the unlikeliest of circumstances. How they end up together is the mystery and joy of the film.
It begins with a bang. A gun goes off, Alex is covered with blood, and the two women ask each other, “What do we do now?” Disposal of the body seems like a good idea, so they carry off the poor dead slob and then wash themselves in a nearby river. After that, it’s a hitched ride into town and a hop on a bus, headed east from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Something went down, but we don’t yet know what.
In a nicely calibrated cinematic transition, Mercer cuts back to the beginning, where Alex and her longtime boyfriend, Joey (Chris McNally), are driving to the woods for a weekend getaway in nature. It’s his idea, as Alex isn’t much of an outdoorsy person. They’ve been together for 8 years yet seem almost like strangers. Which makes what happens next awkward and very uncomfortable.
Joey proposes on a mountaintop (which Alex had no desire to climb), and her unsurprising response leads him to abandon her the next day. After 24 hours or so, Alex decides to try to make her way back, only to trip and knock herself unconscious. Not to worry, though, for another couple—Kianna and her boyfriend, Matt (Cody Kearsley)—happen upon her and tend to her wounds.
And who are these nice people? Possibly a bank-robbing duo we have earlier heard about on the radio. Alex is in no rush to return to the home she shares with the absent Joey, however, and so sticks around. What ensues gets hot, heavy, and sticky in all kinds of ways.
This is a movie about awakening from a deep slumber. Many of us go through the paces of living without much effort to understand the why of it all. Alex is one such person, but now that she has nothing to lose, she seizes chances she never even considered. It helps that Kianna takes a shine to her, and vice versa, but she was ripe for change the moment Joey took off.
The technical details here impress, including the pace of the editing (courtesy of Mercer, doubling in that role). Cinematographer Devan Scott delivers beautiful shots of forest and surrounding landscapes, and composer Caleb Chan’s score adds the right note of eerie unease and longing. The ending is a bit abrupt—and purposefully vague—but the point of the journey here is less the destination than the departure. In A Safe Distance the only safe choice for meaningful opportunities is moving forward.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
