YMMV / Two Distant Strangers

• Ass Pull: Merk turning out to have Ripple-Proof Memory and having been killing Carter on purpose does explain why he killed Carter no matter what Carter did, but otherwise isn't really foreshadowed and raises many more questions, like why he didn't appear confused or at least curious in the second loop, why he kept acting like a regular brutal cop for the first 97 loops (was he Gaslighting him?) and how he could possibly have arranged some of Carter's deaths, like the no-knock warrant or when other cops kill Carter, in the apparently small window of time he has.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The Reveal that Merk isn't just a Rabid Cop, but is aware of the time-loop and is deliberately murdering Carter out of sadism and racism could be taken as a statement that real life American police forces are institutionally designed to oppress underpriviledged groups, and thus should be abolished or at least fundamentally changed; a position held by many real-life critics of the police.
• Complete Monster: Officer Merk is a sadistic and extremely xenophobic NYPD officer. After murdering Carter for a simple confrontation over weed, Merk is made aware of the time loop and abuses it to murder Carter for sport, killing him over 99 times, even breaking into his hookup's apartment with a SWAT team to kill him. In the 99th time loop, Merk puts up a nice mask to bring Carter to his house, before he sadistically reveals his awareness and murders Carter right in front of his house, having plans to continue the time loop murder for as long as possible.
• Critical Dissonance: On Rotten Tomatoes, critics gave it 92% but audiences gave it 66%.
• Harsher in Hindsight: While the film was meant to be timely, the fact that it premiered just as former police officer Derek Chauvin stood trial for the murder of George Floyd, and three more high-profile police shootings (of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo and Andrew Brown, Jr.) took place between its Academy Award nomination and victory, led to the film being hit with criticisms from some Black audiences.
• Older Than They Think: The concept of 'Groundhog Day with a black protagonist who gets shot by police every loop' had been done before. An episode of The Twilight Zone (2019) had the same premise, and before that, Cynthia Kao's short film Groundhog Day For a Black Man came out in 2016 and even won an award at a film festival.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: On the topic of Groundhog Day For a Black Man, criticisms against this short have begun to crop up after Cynthia Kao published a video on TikTok suggesting that the producers of this short stole from her short.
• Squick: Perri does not wash her hands after using the bathroom and then touches Carter's face after he asks her about it. It's played off as a flirtatious joke but still gross.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Most of the commentary you'll see on the film is people calling it out on "ripping off" Cynthia Kao's Groundhog Day For a Black Man. Just look at the replies on the YouTube trailer.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Released around the same time as Them, Two Distant Strangers generated similar controversy regarding its repeated imagery of a Black man being brutally murdered by a white officer, particularly in ways that echo numerous real-life police killings (including the then-recent high-profile instances of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the former of which was still in the news cycle). This led to some Black critics calling the film "trauma porn," feeling it did little to make a novel point on racism that justified the gruesome depictions. The fact that the film does not end on an optimistic note for the black protagonist does not help matters, as this implies that no amount of effort from Black people can resolve the current issue of racism, which may only cause more people within marginalized groups to give up fighting against racism altogether (The opposite effect the film intended to have).

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