« You can stay with us for as long as you’d like. »

After a woman is abandoned by her boyfriend in the forest, she befriends a pair of notorious fugitives on the run from the law, and becomes dangerously entangled in their relationship.

With A safe distance, Gloria Mercer offers a movie about couple dynamics and the threat that personal evolution can pose to them.

When the couple is threatened

Alex (Bethany Brown) and Joey (Chris McNally) have been together for eight years, a milestone they celebrate by going camping. Alex isn’t particularly thrilled, but she agrees to go in the hope that romance will blossom. However, when Joey proposes marriage, he doesn’t get the answer he expected. The next morning, Alex realizes she is all alone in the dense forest. In a panic, she falls and hits her head.

This is how the viewer is set up and the film comes to life. Up to this point, nothing is truly surprising. But the moment Alex is found by Kianna (Tandia Mercedes) and Matt (Cody Kearsley), a couple living in their van who invites her to join them, things change. Yes, we immediately know the couple is wanted by the police and that they are a sort of soft Bonnie and Clyde, but the relationship that develops within the trio is a pleasure to watch on screen.

At this point, two things develop: conflict within the couple sparked by the woman who has just appeared; and a woman trying to reinvent herself, escaping a mundane life to live off the beaten path and experience a sexual rebirth.

The attraction of the bad girl

A world far removed from her monotonous life with Joey settles in for Alex, and she is clearly drawn to her new companions. This sets up the classic cliché of the “good girl” falling in love with the “bad boy.” Except here, she falls in love with the bad girl instead.

The rest, while not terribly original, delivers its fair share of guilty pleasure for the viewer. It’s fun to watch the relationship sour between Kianna and Matt, and it’s enjoyable to see Alex experiencing new things—especially since her boyfriend was a self-centered, unengaging presence.

Thus, in the serene wilderness of British Columbia, Gloria Mercer stages the encounter between a jaded woman and a Bonnie & Clyde-style couple. An encounter that will break one relationship and change a woman’s life for good.

A safe distance is screening at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 30 and July 31, 2026.

Trailer