Send Help

by Mike McGranaghan

Sam Raimi has made his share of “straight” movies, like For Love of the Game and the original Spider-Man trilogy, but he’s always at his best when bringing out his playfully gruesome side. Darkman, Drag Me to Hell, and, especially, the Evil Dead pictures find him offering up a twisted vision no other director can come close to. The screenplay for Send Help, from the team of Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, is written as a straightforward thriller yet it gives Raimi plenty of room to work his unique magic. Theaters should install seatbelts because this movie is a wild ride.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) works in the strategy and planning department of a major company. She’s in line for a significant promotion. That dream is shattered when the late owner’s narcissistic son Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) takes over. He dislikes her mousy demeanor and opts to give the job to a sycophant instead. Dangling the false promise of a chance to prove herself, Bradley invites Linda to come along on a business trip to Bangkok. Their plane crashes, leaving the two stranded on a desert island. She knows a few things about how to survive; he doesn’t, effectively turning the nature of their relationship on its ear.

Imagine the Kathy Bates character from Misery meeting the Tom Hanks character from Cast Away and you get an idea of what Send Help is like. Bradley continues to be abusive to Linda, so she has to consistently remind him that they’re not in the office anymore, and her means become increasingly demented. The self-absorbed business hotshot is humbled by a need to depend upon the woman he views as beneath him. She, meanwhile, gets off on the power trip of suddenly having influence over the guy who has made her work life miserable.

Raimi spices up the very well-written scenario between the characters with bursts of his trademark visual mischief. A scene where Linda hunts a boar for food turns into an Evil Dead-esque “Ash vs. his severed hand” bit of slapstick violence. The airplane disaster mixes horrific realism with macabre flashes of comic gore, making it simultaneously scary and funny. The movie also contains one of the best jump scares of recent years, not because it’s needed but because Raimi knows how freaking cool he can make it.

Rachel McAdams adds to her streak of amazing performances. The actress avoids playing Linda as an outright villain, instead showing how the character has repeatedly been put-upon by domineering men. Finally being in a position where she has the upper hand on one provides a sense of liberation. We see Linda’s confidence growing as she becomes more assertive with Bradley. At the same time, she shreds her frumpiness by adopting a style that’s more glamorous – or as glamorous as one can be when stranded on an island for weeks. McAdams brings it vividly to life while suggesting how the threat of losing her newly acquired power drives the otherwise sympathetic Linda to some dubious behavioral choices.

She and O’Brien are fantastic together. He manages to play a self-absorbed creep in such a manner that you still care what happens to the guy. It’s immensely satisfying to see him strip away Bradley’s confidence as fear slowly replaces it. You almost start to feel sorry for him, except that he stubbornly holds on to his arrogant personality. Being submissive to a woman is simply too much for him to handle.

Send Help successfully mixes smart gender commentary with outrageous genre thrills. Only Sam Raimi could deliver a movie so gloriously unhinged, and thank goodness he did.

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