Send Help review
One person’s paradise is another person’s Misery.
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Send Help
Directed by Sam Raimi
Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift
Starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien
Send Help Review
I referenced the late Rob Reiner’s standout horror film Misery in the introductory line of this article. The movie was on my mind more than once as Send Help played out in front of me. Sam Raimi’s latest film turns around too many times to ever fully commit to one homage…but the Misery one is hard to miss. Once the story reaches the isolation of an island in the middle of nowhere…we’re watching a systematic breakdown of a man who deserves it more than James Caan’s character did in Stephen King’s story. But does he deserve everything that happens in Send Help? Its own story argues that he doesn’t. Sometimes.
Linda (Rachel McAdams) is passed over for a promised promotion by her company’s new leader Bradley (Dylan O’Brien). He still needs her expertise to close a big deal…so she ends up on a doomed flight with the bros club that has passed her by in the corporate world. When the plane crashes (in a pretty great scene that lets Raimi have some dark fun) Linda and an injured Bradley wash up on an island…the only survivors. Roles reverse quickly as Bradley needs to rely on the kindness of someone he is anything but kind to for survival.
A lot of Send Help’s plot could easily be re-edited into a (kind of messed up) romance movie. Bradley is a bad person…but Linda sure tries to fix him. Although the movie doesn’t go very far into a romantic longing for Linda…the underlying beats are played for longer than you’d expect. Linda loves the show Survivor…and has (conveniently) practiced survival skills as a hobby. She is in her element on the remote island. Bradley is completely out of his. He’s powerless…and not taking it well. Linda wants them to stay forever anyway. Even without the romantic overtones…Send Help plays its cards like it’s one of those stories.
It isn’t.
In fact, it’s hard to pin down exactly what the driving point of the story is. The meek Linda who is used to being stepped on and passed over finding her confidence is a major character arc, for sure. But where it leads her isn’t exactly an empowering place. Bradley starts as a terrible person…and Send Help never quite decides if it’s going to redeem him or not. Sometimes it seems like it wants to. Sometimes it doesn’t. As things spiral out of control between them…you’ll be hard pressed to choose who you’re supposed to be rooting for.
The ambiguity mostly works. While it leads to a climax where you genuinely can’t figure out what a “good” ending would be…it allows you to enjoy a ride where anything can happen before it gets there. Bradley is headstrong but incapable in this new setting. Many of what seem like personal growth moments turn out to be a ruse. Linda’s desire to stay leads her down a path even darker than Bradley has lived on. Things turn violent and deadly. There are deceptions abound. A late twist works well to explain some things you might not have even questioned along the way. But you’re still left wondering what you should be taking away from all this.
Raimi, as he usually does, lets you take away an entertaining movie. McAdams and O’Brien are great in what is mostly a two-hander. But Raimi keeps things lively with some great scenes of suspense and surprising gore. An early boar hunt shows off some vintage Raimi magic. The beautiful location does a lot of work itself. Combine it all with a bit of a twisty story that keeps both the stranded characters and viewers on their toes…and you have a fun time at the movies.
The question really is whether Bradley deserves all of it. To a point…he certainly does. But Send Help crosses that point after a while. Send Help seems uncertain as to whether or not this makes him our protagonist. He doesn’t get the attention to a character arc that Linda gets. He’s more of a barometer for when you think Linda has gone too far. It’s likely that different viewers will come away with differing thoughts on that. Mostly though, they’ll probably just enjoy a gorgeously shot movie with some surprising moments and two strong performances.
Scare Value
Sam Raimi delivers another fun time at the movies. Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien do good work. Their characters can get varying degrees of despicable…and deciding who deserves what could make up a senior thesis. What matters most is that Raimi knows how to let them play in the muck…and present some flashes of the wildness that has made his genre career so memorable and long lasting.
3.5/5
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