FANTASIA26 REVIEW: A Safe Distance [20XX]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 85 minutes
Studio: Vortex Media / Drafthouse Films
Director(s): Gloria Mercer
Writer(s): Aidan West

This isn’t your fault.

After berating her to take time off and then choosing the vacation he wanted, Joey’s (Chris McNally) botched proposal leading him to just abandon Alex (Bethany Brown) in the forest tells us all we need to know about why she said, “No.” So, it’s intentional that the couple finding her unconscious on the ground seems like everything they weren’t. Kianna (Tandia Mercedes) and Matt (Cody Kearsley) genuinely love each other and listen to each other’s needs.

Or do they? Because the intent in that assumption is less about truth than setting up the narrative that will ultimately prove it false. Director Gloria Mercer and writer Aidan West have already shown us that the only two people leaving those woods are Alex and Kianna. They open A Safe Distance with a gunshot before showing the two women dumping a body, washing the blood off their faces, and buying a bus ticket far away. So, how did it come to that?

It’s a great way to bring us into the fold. Start at the end, rewind to the beginning, and work back to the trigger pull marrying the two. Now we can meet Alex and discover where she is in life as a work-from-home thirty-five-year-old who regrets never having experienced the moments she dreamed about in her youth. We can learn about a string of Bonnie and Clyde bank robberies before meeting Kianna and Matt basking in their freedom from societal constraints.

The juxtaposition is obvious. Alex and Joey are the boring thirty-somethings who embraced their drab lives as cogs in the capitalistic machine. Kianna and Matt are the cool twenty-somethings living off the grid with zero responsibilities beyond tracking the police hunt on the radio to ensure they aren’t caught. The latter couple are therefore everything Alex wishes she can be with the former proving why they rejected the status quo in the first place.

But appearances are never quite what they seem. A lot of people who reject something do so because they were born with the privilege to make that choice. Many of those who resign themselves to their own exploitation are forced to comply because they don’t. That’s what gives this woodland collision the potential to change their lives. Its setting is devoid of societal constraints. It’s a place where they can be honest about who they are outside of the game.

Maybe Alex is a stone-cold killer beneath the cautious exterior willing to endure eight years of a relationship she knows has no future. Maybe Matt’s ability to spout his feminist ideals are less about his truth and more about pointing out the misogyny around him so no looks close enough to see the hypocrisy. Maybe Kianna is the realest of them all—using whoever is willing to be used to help achieve her goal of retiring alone in the Maritimes with a giant nest egg.

That’s where the meat of A Safe Distance lies. It’s in the arguments Alex overhears between a drunk Kianna and Matt. It’s about the mistakes made and the festering jealousies when an outsider is introduced into a closed loop. Is Alex’s presence a catalyst for the cracks forming in the foundation of her hosts’ union? Or has she simply provided an external sounding board for Kianna and Matt to find purpose in putting their foot down instead of blindly acquiescing?

Alex throws a wrinkle into Matt’s devoted-to-the-cause mystique once a night of drug-infused sexuality leaves the trio wondering about next steps. She gives Kianna the ability to put a hypothesis of not needing Matt to work. Alex is just as much a reminder of an outside world beyond their microcosm as they are to her since, despite having each other, their bank robbers are just as isolated and alone. They’re just as mired in their routine and desperate for reason to wake up.

Well, this is it. For some (like Joey), that pivot point is realizing this is enough. For others (like Alex), it’s realizing that they want more. And power and gender do play into it. Hearing both Joey and Matt say their better halves would be helpless without them isn’t a coincidence. Alex and Kianna asserting control with consent and a gun isn’t either. Because reason and safety take a back seat to desire and necessity. Both women are breaking free from men as much as society.

It’s therefore fun to see how loose Brown and Mercedes are when it’s just them. Contrast that with the sex scenes (Alex praying Joey will finish soon or Kianna looking for Alex while Matt is between her legs) and it’s easy to see the line between love and pragmatism. Alex is still with Joey because it’s easy. Kianna stays with Matt because their goals are currently still aligned. But all bets are off the moment that status quo changes.

The result is an entertaining character study that never forgets the central mystery of that gun shot. We can assume the identity of the body they dumped as much as we want, but we won’t know until we see what we originally only heard. We enjoy Kianna and Matt’s disintegrating relationship with Alex supplying the wedge enough that Mercer and West can work their magic before we remember there might be one more card up their sleeves.