SEND HELP REVIEW
“Raimi’s gleeful return to creating gross-out shocks and laughs is quite welcome.”
I’ve been very excited for Sam Raimi’s return to theaters with something non-IP related, because (as hard as it is to believe), it’s been 16 years since the excellent Drag Me to Hell. In the case of Send Help, he’s doing something R-rated for the first time in 25 years, which would allow him to let loose, and that’s exactly what he does.
With one of the simplest elevator pitches ever, Send Help introduces us to Rachel McAdams’ Linda Liddle, a hard-working desk worker at a big company where she is undervalued and never given credit for her importance. To be frank, Linda is a mess, and a time, she’s a complete disaster, so when Dylan O’Brien’s Bradley Preston takes over running the company from his late father, he does not give Linda the promotion she’d been promised. But he does bring her on a business trip to Thailand to help with merger negotiations, but the plane is hit by a terrible storm that sends the plane down. We learn early on that Linda is a fan of the show “Survivor,” even having made an embarrassing audition tape that Preston is watching and laughing about with his bro pals, but when Linda finds her terrible boss washed up on the beach, she saves him, nurses him back to health and uses her survival skills to keep them both nourished and alive. There’s even a hilarious scene where she hunts and kills a wild boar.
On the island, Linda has all the control, so of course, she never wants to leave, and she deliberately hides stuff from Bradley, whose mood goes from thankful and grateful to a sharp to his real form, a completely irreverent asshole who looks down on Linda. There’s far more to Linda than she lets up, and that’s partially what makes her such a joyful character to root for. Undoubtedly, Rachel McAdams delivers the performance of her career to portray Linda, and it’s so nice seeing her in such a juicy role that clearly allows her to have fun Linda’s various sides and dimensions. It’s an especially nice turn from her character Red Eye, who was far more reactive. So many people were raving so much about Dylan O’Brien in last year’s Twinless, but Send Help allows him to do far more interesting things, since Bradley goes through an equal range of emotions as Linda.
As much as anything else, Send Help has a fantastic, next-level screenplay by Damion Shannon and Mark Swift, whose credits include Freddy vs. Jason (which I loved) and the Baywatch movie (yikes!) I can totally see Raimi getting this screenplay and chuckling at how dark it gets and immediately seeing how he could turn this into another classic for his fans. He really takes advantage of the R-rating with some great gross-out moments, involving blood and lots of vomit, although there are only a few actual horror elements, since it’s more of a darkly comedic revenge thriller, and in that sense, it’s very funny.
Essentially, it’s a two-hander between these two fine actors. Although it mostly takes place on this beach, their relationship never gets tiresome as new ideas gets thrown into the mix. At times, it feels like the craziest meet-cute rom-com of all time, then there’s even a point when it swerves into Misery territory, as we see how far Linda will go to keep her paradise hierarchy in place.
Despite that strong screenplay and those performances, that doesn’t mean Raimi’s crafts team aren’t being pushed to do similarly fine work. It had to take quite a lot from production design and locations to find and dress up the tropical locations, as well as presumably the VFX team. The way the film is shot (by Bill Pope from all of Raimi’s “Spider-Man” movies!) and edited also adds so much to why it works so well, as does Danny Elfman’s score, which always keeps the film’s tone on point.
Send Help is really nothing like Red Eye or Drag Me to Hell, yet the Raimi DNA is still so evident in specific scenes that Raimi’s gleeful return to creating gross-out shocks and laughs is indeed quite welcome. This is the kind of movie that needs to be seen with an audience, since a lot of what happens in this movie creates such great reactions you’ll want to share those with others.
Rating: 8/10
Send Help opens nationwide on Friday Jan. 30.