4 out of 5 stars (one of the best of the year)
Every year brings a few movies that grab me from start to finish, and Send Help is one of them. It’s a delightfully twisted tale from horror maestro Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogies, Drag Me To Hell) with a great script carried by 2 powerhouse leads in Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien that will ensure you never look at that seemingly meek co-worker in the neighboring cubicle the same way again. Outside of some minor missteps, Send Help is a darkly fun, engaging, and go-for-broke survival story that adds another gold star onto Rachel McAdam’s already excellent track record.
Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a whip smart yet socially awkward finance employee who’s been promised a Vice President promotion once her credit-stealing boss bids adieu. Unfortunately, the new boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) is the same as the old boss, giving the job to an underexperienced nimrod because the two were frat bros in college. When Bradley is informed by a senior executive (Dennis Haysbert, who I expected to try and sell me All State) of Linda’s necessity on a business merger, he begrudgingly takes her along, only for their plane to crash on a deserted island. This allows Linda’s inner survivalist to come out, establishing camp and nursing an injured Bradley back to health hoping to prove her worth to him. But as time goes on and dynamics shift, both will uncover sides of themselves they didn’t know were there in the name of staying alive.
At its heart, Send Help is a story of an undervalued person getting the opportunity to prove her naysayers wrong, just with an R-rating, dark humor, and spikes of gore and horror imagery. Director Sam Raimi has always walked a fine line between freaking us out and making us care for the characters in stories, and the script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift is perfectly catered to his sensibilities. The characterizations are over-the-top yet sincere and McAdams and O’Brien are excellent. The former gives the craziest performance of her career and is clearly reveling in showing a more unhinged side, and the latter holds his own well with her while bringing unexpected humanity to it. I love stories that challenge our perceptions of the characters and Send Help does that with gleeful swagger.
I sadly have some quibbles with Send Help that hold it back from a 5-star rating. The editing in an opening dialogue scene feels oddly flat, 2 or 3 small scenes feel like they end too quickly, and a CGI pig in one sequence could’ve used another pass. There’s also a nod to Raimi’s Evil Dead that feels slightly indulgent, but in the grand scheme, I was engaged, entertained, and had a blast with this from beginning to end, and what more can I ask from the movies? Send Help is darkly fun, gnarly, and insane in the best way with a top-form Rachel McAdams, strong script, and wonderfully confident direction that’s one of my favorites of this young year. If you’ve got the stomach for gore, See it!
Rated R for Strong/Bloody Violence and Language