Review: The Exit State (2026)

Gabriela Ledesma’s The Exit State is, at its core, a journey into the anatomy of fear. It begins with a premise that feels uncomfortably close to the present.

Set in the United States as it slides into authoritarian rule, the film follows a group of citizens attempting to flee south across the Mexican border. Their journey takes an unexpected turn when they seek refuge in a secluded safe house, situated in what they believe to be politically neutral territory. But the promise of sanctuary soon gives way to suspicion, as the group discovers that the people offering them shelter may be as dangerous as the forces they are escaping.

Among the escapees is Zoey (Cindy Nguyen), a young journalist carrying sensitive footage implicating American officials. Her possession of this material makes her an object of distrust, not only among the other fugitives but also to their wealthy hosts, the siblings Vince (Josh George) and Claire (Callie Schuttera). As the group's precarious arrangement begins to unravel, the house becomes a den of competing interests, concealed motives and shifting allegiances. 

Ledesma, working alongside production designer Lisa Garcia, uses the film’s confined setting to examine how quickly the instinct for self-preservation can erode the possibility of solidarity. The narrative refuses to treat political collapse as an abstract backdrop for conventional suspense, instead making it an immediate and unsettling reality for those caught within it.

The film is less interested in explaining how the country arrived at this point than in observing what happens to people when the structures they once relied on cease to protect them. The wealthy hosts’ position, in particular, complicates the idea of political neutrality. In a world where some can purchase distance from disorder while others have no choice but to confront it, refuge itself becomes a question of power.

There are echoes of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games in the film’s confrontational treatment of violence. Ledesma resists the reassuring rhythms of conventional genre entertainment, directing with a severity that leaves little room for relief. Tension accumulates through small gestures, guarded exchanges and the growing uncertainty surrounding everyone’s intentions. Brutality is not an occasional interruption but the governing condition of the film’s world. Each development tightens the atmosphere, making the prospect of escape seem increasingly remote.

None of the characters is afforded an easy moral position, and the film is at its most unsettling when self-interest masquerades as necessity.

Josh George and Callie Schuttera bring a sense of mysterious intrigue and calculated hostility to their roles, keeping their characters' intentions difficult to read. Their performances add another layer of uncertainty to the film's already unsettling atmosphere. Schuttera gives Zoey an appropriate mixture of apprehension and determination, while Clayton Farris, Sharon Lawrence and Josh George contribute effectively to the shifting dynamics within the group. 

There is, perhaps, a certain bluntness to Ledesma's treatment of its political and social concerns. Yet the film's directness is also part of its appeal. It does not soften its observations with sentimentality or manufacture redemption where none seems possible. 

By the time it reaches its deeply unsettling conclusion, The Exit State has dispensed with the familiar consolations of the survival thriller. What remains is a bleak portrait of a society in which the search for safety can become another form of captivity. Its final unease lingers precisely because the world it imagines feels less like a distant dystopia than a possibility already taking shape.