By George & Josh Bate
Everyone’s heard of a third wheel. That person who comes along and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, inserts themselves in the middle of a close romantic relationship between two people. But what if the couple in question are a Bonnie and Clyde type, on the run from the law from a string of bank robberies? And what if the third that tags along while the couple are hiding in the barren Canadian wilderness? That’s the set up for the new thriller A Safe Distance premiering at SXSW 2026.
From director Gloria Mercer and screenwriter Aidan West, A Safe Distance follows Alex (Bethany Brown), a young woman who is stranded in the wilderness after a romantic getaway with her boyfriend (Chris McNally) turns sour. Alex is rescued by Kianna (Tandia Mercedes) and Matt (Cody Kearsley), an enigmatic young couple living off the grid as they harbor a dark secret. As Alex is drawn into the couple’s exhilarating relationship, she forms unexpected connections and complicated emotions but finds herself at a crossroads when she discovers the couple are fugitives wanted for a string of violent bank robberies. In uncomfortably close proximity to one another, the Bonnie and Clyde + 1 see their dynamics evolve and tensions rise over time.
The HoloFiles recently had the opportunity to speak with A Safe Distance director Gloria Mercer and stars Bethany Brown and Tandia Mercedes about their new thriller, its refreshingly slower pace, filming in the Canadian wilderness, how the on-screen dynamics played out in real life, and more.
Director Gloria Mercer reframes the longstanding “lovers on the run” story with a feminist lens in A Safe Distance. To tell a story that depicts the slowly shifting dynamics between three people, the Canadian thriller unfolds with deliberate pacing that allows the tension to rise and the relationships to develop organically. “We talked a lot in development [that] this is going to be a movie that takes its time,” Mercer explained. “Some of our inspirations were really great slow burn thrillers. Like I remember we talked a lot about Lee Chang Dong’s Burning when [screenwriter] Aidan [West] was writing the film, which is a super amazing, great movie and it’s a super slow burn.”
Coming from a background in television, having starred in shows such as the Canadian crime drama Murder in a Small Town and the ABC hit The Good Doctor, star Bethany Brown found acting in a movie that is allowed to breathe to be liberated. “There was just so much space before you get into the dialogue,” Brown said. “And I often come from TV where you really act on the line and [here] there was just so much space to feel things and to think things before you actually say things. I’m gonna toot Gloria’s horn because I don’t know if she’s going to toot it herself. I think she had the edit in her mind before we got there. It was really very intentional. I think we all knew that there was going to be a lot of space on either side of the scenes.”
A Safe Distance features a small cast, even by indie film standards. Bethany Brown and Tandia Mercedes are only accompanied by actors Cody Kearsley and Chris McNally in the film, the latter of whom only plays a small role to kick the story off. Tandia Mercedes discussed how the small cast led to an intimate filmmaking experience. “All I really have to say on that is that I feel like it definitely made it more intimate and I think made it maybe easier for us to bounce ideas off of each other when a lot of it was just the three of us,” Mercedes reflected.
Bethany Brown elaborated that this intimacy enabled the actors to experiment with different concepts and takes. “It was really fun with Gloria, because we actually got to play with the scenes like in rehearsal and play with them a number of different ways and to find things that didn’t work and things that we didn’t like,” Brown described. “I think one of the beautiful things for me is we weren’t afraid to fail in front of each other, like really try something, swing from the fences and for it to not land, but to find something kind of beautiful in that anyway.”
Brown went on to describe it as “intimate filmmaking, but also intimate after the fact” as she, Mercedes, and their co-star Cody Kearsley have remained close following production. “I was thinking about this last night and I was like, ‘I think every single person, every crew person, we all fell in love with the script and we all just fell in love with the project,’” Brown said. “So people are like, ‘Oh, it’s labor of love.’ But I’m like, ‘No, I think we were all in love.’ You know what I mean? And we were in love with those moments of nuance and finding relationship and tenderness. It was really, really beautiful process.”
This intimacy is certainly felt in a film centered around how one person’s entry into a small group can uproot dynamics entirely. As each and every scene goes by, the ways in which the three characters interact one another shift in subtle, almost imperceptible ways, posing a challenge to the actors to organically convey the slow progression of multiple relationships. “I think it certainly helped that we had a month where we could meet up and go over the script and rehearse a little bit,” Mercedes said as she explained how she and her co-stars navigated this challenge. “And then that way I got to know Bethany a little bit more. So that made us have an actual connection outside of the film, which I think usually helps a lot with showing connection on camera as well.”
Over the course of the film, Tandia Mercedes’ bank robber on-the-run Kianna grows increasingly distant from her boyfriend and partner-in-crime as she steadily develops a bond with Bethany Brown’s Alex. Brown noted how the shifting dynamics between the three on-screen mirrored what was happening off screen as well. “[Cody Kearsley’s Matt] hated watching this person who was his slowly slip away and gravitate towards somebody else,” Brown reflected. “And it was translating into our dynamic outside of set as well, because me and [Tandia] got to hang out so much and we were sending memes back and forth and like T sends the funniest, most inappropriate memes on the planet… And then I’m laughing so hard and showing it to people and he can feel these places where he’s missing parts of it and becoming lonely. And then what does he do when loneliness creeps in?”
All of these evolving relationships unfold in the isolation of the Canadian wilderness, imbuing the film with simultaneous coziness and unease. After discussing how an actual bear showed up during production one day, Brown spoke about how the setting of the film informed its themes. “We shot in the spring in [British Columbia], Canada where it’s cold. And so you really feel the elements on your skin and it’s wet cold. It kind of gets into your bones as well. And for [my character] Alex, so much of that is so uncomfortable and really unsafe. There’s just so much unknown. And then over time, I think spending more time in the forest, it does become sort of cozy. And then there’s just very specific moments where you remember how unsafe you are or how this could turn on a dime. I think that that sort of plays into the themes of the film around safety: what is safety in interpersonal relationships? What is safety when things are getting cozy, but that thing can turn on a dime?”
Safety continues to emerge as a theme in the film as it touches on toxic aspects of modern relationships and performative feminism. “When [screenwriter Aidan West and I] were talking about it, I wanted to make a film about contemporary relationships really early on,” Mercer described. “And then he kind of pitched this idea to me and then it changed a lot over the years that it took to make it. But I was really interested in the ways that misogyny or violence or whatever you want to call it can kind of take forms that you might not even notice in the moment. It can be really insidious, as you said.”
Mercer related these themes to aspects of her personal life. “I had some kind of crappy experiences and relationships that I really thought about the effect that it can have on you when you’re in a relationship like that, where you make yourself feel small and you don’t even really notice it,” the director reflected. “And then maybe you spend years that way. And then all of a sudden you put yourself in a little box and you’re like, ‘Oh, this isn’t really the life that I want to live.’ Then Aiden had the idea to transpose that onto a genre setting. So it was really fun building on this legacy of lovers on the run stories and Bonnie and Clyde, but also making it feel more contemporary.”
As Mercer so succinctly describes A Safe Distance, “It’s a love story, but then a guy with a man bun comes along and ruins everything.” If that’s not enough to entice you to watch the film, we don’t know what will.