Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Gloria Mercer
Starring: Bethany Brown, Tandia Mercedes, Cody Kearsley, Chris McNally
While the erotic thrillers of the '80s were essentially upmarket cousins of
slasher movies, their '90s descendants that followed in the wake of Basic Instinct had more in common with classic Film Noir. Most of them adopted the
classic Noir template of a patsy seduced by a femme fatale and duped into
committing a crime on her behalf. Gloria Mercer's feature directorial debut A Safe Distance, an expansion of her earlier short of the same name, owes much
to both Film Noir and the erotic thriller - here we have a love triangle
between three beautiful people, a bag of cash and a gun. But what makes it
feel fresh (quite literally) is its setting. Eschewing the usual back alleys
and Hollywood mansions of Film Noir and erotic thrillers, A Safe
Distance transfers its dynamic to the Canadian wilderness.
It's against this striking backdrop that we meet Alex (Bethany Brown) and
Joey (Chris McNally). After eight years together it's clear that Alex and
Joey are on two very different emotional trajectories. The spark has long
been extinguished for Alex, while the oblivious Joey believes now is the
right time to propose. You'll often see prudes moan about how sex scenes
don't add anything to a movie's plot, but Mercer stages the most strikingly effective sex scene I've seen in some time here. As Joey selfishly pumps away,
the uncomfortable Alex stares dead-eyed into the distance, simply waiting
for the joyless routine to finish. It's a clever use of a sex scene that
does a better job of establishing the dynamic between two characters than
any shouty argument might.
When Alex rejects Joey's proposal, citing how he used it as an opportunity
to speak about himself rather than what she means to him, the two go to
sleep in awkward silence. Alex wakes the following morning to find Joey has
left her stranded in the woods. She's found by Kianna (Tandia Mercedes)
and Matt (Cody Kearsley), an attractive couple of hippies living off the
grid in a camper van parked in the forest. Alex is immediately seduced by
their free-living ways, and after much alcohol and some magic mushrooms she
joins them for a threesome that night. But when she discovers a bag filled with cash in
their van, Alex begins to suspect that her new friends are the couple
responsible for a series of well-publicised bank robberies.
Aidan West's script seamlessly blends Noir and erotic thriller tropes in a
way that reminds us just how interlinked those two sub-genres really are.
What's really clever about A Safe Distance is how it keeps moving its chess
pieces so we're never entirely sure which character is occupying which
classic role. Who is the patsy and who is the femme (or homme) fatale in
this scenario? The three leads play a sort of Noir musical chairs, shifting
from one role to the other as the twisty narrative develops. At various
points we fear for Alex, while at others we wonder if Kianna and Matt should
be fearful of her.
Canada's indie film scene has been thriving for a few years now, but few
Canadian productions exploit their country's incredible countryside. Not so
A Safe Distance, which employs the wilderness of the Pacific coast to add the
sort of production value that money can't buy. Centring a story of human
lust and avarice against a backdrop of such over-awing natural beauty makes
it seem all the more petty, exposing the hypocrisy of Kianna and Matt's
claims of escaping the capitalist rat race. They may be living in the woods,
but they're still fuelled by the sort of greed that leads them to seek the
a fortune they would struggle to spend. The feminist-presenting Matt,
who likes to moan about "the patriarchy," is similarly exposed as a
hypocrite when he begins to feel threatened by Alex's presence and the
threat of Kianna trading Bonnie and Clyde for Thelma and Louise. We see parallels between Matt and Joey in their deluded belief that the women in their lives would be nothing without them.
Anyone thinking of making the leap into low budget filmmaking should be
inspired by A Safe Distance. It makes the most of a stunning but relatively
easily accessible setting, a small but talented cast and a tight script that
keeps us engaged throughout. If this is what Mercer and West can achieve
with limited means, I'm excited to see what they might produce with some
heftier financial backing.
