‘Send Help’ movie review: Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien shine in Sam Raimi’s darkly comic survival thriller

Sam Raimi’s return to his Evil Dead roots is something to look forward to in the New Year. The Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness director mostly delivers, with sufficient amounts of gore, boar-hunting, and eye-gouging. This meek-shall-inherit-the-earth trip is completely satisfying — until a character makes a call that lands them firmly on the naughty list and stops us rooting for them in our tracks.

As a result, the epilogue, instead of being rousing and uplifting, feels faintly hollow, leaving ash in the mouth rather than the sweet taste of a well-deserved win.

Linda (Rachel McAdams) is a brilliant and conscientious worker in her company’s Planning & Strategy Department. Her people skills, however, are lacking, and her colleagues invariably laugh at her even as they take credit for her work.

All is meant to change when Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) takes over the company upon his father’s death. Bradley’s father promised Linda she would be promoted when Bradley took over. The promise is broken when Bradley promotes his friend from college, Donovan (Xavier Samuel), instead. Bradley is a standard-issue entitled person who treats everyone with a mix of condescension and entitlement, including his fiancée, Zuri (Edyll Ismail).  

Though Bradley, who is repulsed by Linda, wants to banish her to a dead-end part of the business, Franklin (Dennis Haysbert), a senior executive, says Donovan will not be able to manage the important merger coming up. Bradley tells Linda to come along for the merger, with the idea of using her expertise until the deal goes through, before exiling her to an obscure position.

On the flight to Bangkok, as Bradley and Donovan laugh over Linda’s audition tape for Survivor, the plane develops engine failure and crashes into the ocean. Only Linda and Bradley wash ashore on a deserted island off the Gulf of Thailand.

A still from ‘Send Help’
| Photo Credit:
20th Century Studios

The tables are properly turned now as Linda with her endless watching of Survivor has all the skills needed to live off the land. Bradley repeatedly fights against the perceived loss of control — a control he never truly possessed, having merely inherited the company his father built. It is just that on the island, survival and power are stripped of their language of civilisation.

McAdams wades into her role with gusto, and we root for her as she transforms from office nerd to skilled survivalist. McAdams and O’Brien are the only two people on screen for most of the movie and they do the heavy lifting, riffing off each other as the micro-aggressions scale up to full-on war.

There is gore, eye trauma (in 3D, no less) and grossness as well as humour. The island is gorgeous and could have been an Eden, if only snaky human nature could let it be.

There are all kinds of readings one can make into the psychological survival thriller, or not. Send Help can also be enjoyed as a nifty exercise in an extreme what‑if, provided one can accept the choice Linda makes when survival tips into something else.

Send Help is currently running in theatres