Reinvention Begins Beyond the Nearest Road

Read Time:6 Minute, 33 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
A Safe Distance
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Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director(s): Gloria Mercer
Writer(s): Aidan West
Cast: Bethany Brown, Tandia Mercedes, Cody Kearsley, Chris McNally, Henry Mah
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Fantasia Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: Eight years into their relationship, Alex and Joey seem to be living entirely different versions of the same life. He sees a romantic camping trip and the perfect place to propose. She sees another reminder of how little he understands her. A SAFE DISTANCE begins inside the thought of that disconnect, then strips away everything and leaves Alex to decide whether the life waiting back home is one she wants to return to.

A SAFE DISTANCE begins with the aftermath of violence before returning to the decisions that placed its characters in that moment. The structure supplies the question, although the identity of the eventual victim matters less than how the alliances inside this arrangement take shape. Director Gloria Mercer isn’t building toward some simple solution. She’s more interested in watching people decide what they’re willing to accept from one another once isolation removes most outside expectations.

Bethany Brown gives Alex the withdrawn presence of someone who has been living according to decisions made years earlier. She isn’t portrayed as miserable, which makes her dissatisfaction more convincing. Alex has learned to cooperate, endure, and continue without pausing long enough to consider whether any of it resembles happiness. Even her rejection feels less like a sudden rebellion than the first honest response she has allowed herself in a long time.

Joey’s retaliation leaves her without transportation, supplies, or any path back to civilization. His behavior is frightening precisely because it grows from wounded entitlement rather than elaborate villainy. Chris McNally plays him as a man who considers himself thoughtful and loving, never recognizing how quickly that identity collapses when Alex refuses to reward him. Mercer doesn’t need to keep Joey around for long to establish the kind of control Alex has mistaken for stability.

Her encounter with Kianna and Matt offers something far less secure and more appealing. The couple lives in a van, sleeps beneath the trees, and treats ordinary responsibilities as though they belong to people who haven’t learned how to escape them. Their attraction to Alex develops alongside her fascination with their life, creating an invitation that’s sexual, emotional, and potentially criminal. Returning home would mean explaining what happened and stepping back into the routine that had already suffocated her. Remaining with two strangers should appear irrational, yet the alternative has become difficult for her to defend.

Tandia Mercedes makes Kianna the person Alex can’t stop watching. Her confidence carries warmth without ever becoming entirely reassuring, and Mercedes lets small shifts in her attention reveal when curiosity begins to turn into genuine desire. Kianna appears comfortable with the life she has chosen, although that certainty becomes less convincing as Alex learns how much of it has been shaped around Matt. Their freedom contains rules. They’ve simply replaced the expectations of conventional life with ones they created themselves.

Cody Kearsley gives Matt enough charm to explain why Kianna would have followed him into the woods. He speaks the language of liberation and rejects the structures he believes keep everyone trapped. His principles become noticeably less generous once he senses the balance of his relationship changing. Matt enjoys rebellion when he remains in control of it. Alex’s presence forces him to confront the possibility that Kianna’s independence may include choosing someone other than him.

That ultimately gives A SAFE DISTANCE more bite than its premise initially suggests. The money and threat of capture create pressure, though Mercer keeps returning to the smaller discussions occurring among the three. Who receives attention, who makes decisions, and who gets to define what their arrangement means becomes as dangerous as anything waiting beyond the campsite. Each person sees an opportunity in the other two, and affection never removes the possibility of exploitation.

The wilderness provides more than an attractive setting. Thick forests create privacy while also making escape difficult, and the landscape shifts between refuge and confinement depending on who appears to hold power. Long lenses compress the trees around the characters, occasionally making the woods feel less open than the city lives they rejected. The natural beauty doesn’t purify anyone’s motives. It merely gives them somewhere isolated to act upon them.

A SAFE DISTANCE remains measured even when guns, stolen money, and shifting loyalties threaten to turn it into a more conventional chase story. The restraint occasionally leaves the drama feeling thinner than it should. Alex also adapts to her increasingly dangerous circumstances with surprising ease. Her hunger for change explains part of that response, although the screenplay could have spent more time examining the fear that would accompany entrusting her future to wanted criminals.

Matt receives less emotional room than Alex and Kianna, making some of his later behavior easier to anticipate. He functions effectively within the triangle, but the film’s interest has clearly moved toward the women before the relationships reach their breaking point. That focus is understandable and ultimately more rewarding, though it reduces the uncertainty surrounding which connection might survive.

Brown and Mercedes prevent that imbalance from becoming a larger problem. Their chemistry develops through curiosity rather than instant devotion, allowing attraction to grow alongside recognition. Alex sees someone who appears unafraid to reject ordinary life. Kianna sees someone who might understand how one form of freedom can quietly turn into another kind of confinement. Neither woman needs to explain everything for their connection to make sense.

A SAFE DISTANCE understands that escape and liberation aren’t interchangeable. Leaving a relationship, abandoning a home, or stealing enough money to avoid a conventional life may remove some restrictions, but none of those acts guarantees control over what happens next. Alex’s awakening brings danger because she has spent so long letting others decide what her life should become. Her first independent choices are bound to be messy.

Mercer doesn’t condemn that mess or pretend bloodshed transforms it into empowerment. Alex’s journey is exciting, selfish, frightening, and necessary in ways that refuse to line up neatly. The crime story gives her permission to behave badly without reducing her to either a victim or a triumphant symbol of reinvention. By the end, returning safely to her former life may be possible, but safety no longer sounds like the same thing as living.

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[photo courtesy of AREA V5 PICTURES, SEE HORSE FILMS, GIANT PICTURES, DRAFTHOUSE FILMS, VORTEX MEDIA]

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