Rob Munday

It’s easy to become preoccupied with people we don’t truly know – the stranger we pass each day, the fellow gym-goer who shares our routine, the kind assistant at a local shop – but often these obsessions are best left at a distance. It’s precisely this kind of infatuation that underpins Max Distance, Marissa Goldman’s off-kilter SXSW comedy, which follows a daydreaming computer programmer, Erica, who spends an inordinate amount of time in unnecessary Zoom meetings fantasising about her neighbour, Nat.

It’s in these two interwoven spaces that Goldman’s film finds much of its relatability. If modern life has trained us in anything, it’s the ability to half-attend endless meetings while simultaneously fixating on people we barely know. As someone prone to daydreaming, I find this particularly familiar – the ease with which attention drifts, whether in virtual calls or everyday encounters, toward something more compelling elsewhere. It is, however, in its humorous portrayal of infatuation that Max Distance resonates most strongly. Erica emerges as a protagonist who is immediately recognisable and broadly sympathetic, even when her behaviour becomes questionable.

Anna Seregina stars as Erica in Max Distance

“It felt like a good way to express some feelings of isolation and the separate lanes we are all put in in the Internet era”, Goldman explains as she discusses how Max Distance begun from the simple act of looking through windows to expand into something bigger. With the film’s title referring to both the emotional and social distance created by contemporary digital life and to the terminology used by dating apps to define one’s potential “discovery pool.” In this sense, Goldman’s short participates in a growing body of work examining the quiet distortions and disconnections produced by an increasingly internet-mediated existence.

However, for Goldman – who serves as both writer and director on Max Distance – the film is not only an opportunity to contribute to discussions on modern life, but also a step forward in her own development as a filmmaker, and a chance to create something she “felt proud of.” Considering the direction she saw her work taking, Goldman chose to “play with visual comedy” in Max Distance, bringing together the various skills she has developed throughout her career into a single, attention-grabbing piece.

S/W regular David Brown stars as neighbour, Nat, in Max Distance

Acknowledging that she often approaches projects in a “form-first” manner, it is unsurprising that the film’s visual language plays a central role. “I do a lot of storyboarding and moodboarding,” the filmmaker explains. As an After Effects animator, she also completed all of the VFX work herself, while crediting cinematographer Victor Inglés and colourist Gabe Sanchez for helping the film’s colours “pop.” With much of the film already fully formed in her mind before it reaches the screen, Max Distance functions not only as an impressive calling card for Goldman, but also as an illuminating glimpse into a distinctive creative sensibility – one that appears to have a very bright future ahead.