Send Help

Grade: C+

Send Help is a bait-and-switch from the advertising to the silver screen. It teases us as a potentially fiery “eat the patriarchy” showdown between a misogynistic, toxically masculine CEO and a meek woman employee who is treated as nothing more than a glorified secretary – as they are stranded on a deserted island, Cast Away style. The ways they could explore the power dynamic in this unexpected situation was a prospect that enticed me. Instead, it ends up being a silly, annoying, sitcommy affair. When it’s not that, it devolves into campiness and graphic gore played up for laughs. That it is directed by Sam Raimi should have been a clue. I wanted less Raimi and more Greta Gerwig, perhaps. Imagine what she could have with this.

The woman in question is the symbolically named Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams). She is awkward, bespectacled, frumpily dressed, and has a slouched posture. Regina George from Mean Girls wouldn’t have given her the time of day. However, she is good with numbers, and has been a devoted employee of the company for 7 years – as opposed to everyone’s new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), who waltzes in to take over the company after his father’s passing. The late CEO (Bruce Campbell, who we only see in a portrait on the office wall) thought very highly of Linda, and was planning on giving her a promotion. Instead, it goes to one of Preston’s former fraternity brothers and longtime golf buddy.

Bradley isn’t a complete monster, nor is Linda a perfect, innocent saint. I didn’t sympathize with Linda as much as I felt we should, for the movie to work. McAdams plays her as a cloying caricature, especially in these opening scenes. She’s fidgety, has a shrill laugh, tries too hard, and commits the workplace faux pas of stinking up the office by eating a tuna fish sandwich at her cubicle. I can understand people feeling some kind of way about that. Bradley has one last task for Linda before getting rid of her, one way or another – so he invites her along on a business trip to Bangkok. Wicked turbulence sets in over the ocean, and as Bradley and Linda were the only two passengers seat-belted in, they are the sole survivors.

The plane crash sequence is a work of art. It shines, in true Raimi fashion, with bloody carnage and jump scares, complemented by Danny Elfman’s score. Once we get to the island, very little is done in the way of obtaining help or rescue. The film settles into various forms of nerve-grating dialogue and cookie cutter Gilligan’s Island situations. Sometimes they engage in verbal back-and-forths, like Petruchio and Kate, or Benedick and Beatrice. One scene has them in a competition of who can be the better “Susie Homemaker.” They each save one another’s lives at least once, and try to kill each other at least once. Facial hair doesn’t grow that much. The shelters they build, food they prepare, and accessories they make are what you’d expect from any major movie crew.

McAdams is usually a pleasure to see, but she’s so over-the-top here, and almost as difficult to root for as the Bradley character. O’Brien is emerging as one of our most valuable actors working today, equally as convincing as a villain and a hero. He impressed me so much last year in Anniversary and Twinless, and did a spot-on Dan Aykroyd in Saturday Night. This movie either needed to ditch the laughs it kept desperately reaching for and play it for real, or embrace the grisly ridiculous cartoonish zaniness shown in a few promising parts. Once I got used to one particular vibe, it would switch to another.

You will have to surrender yourself to the developments in the final act. To paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, the director goes full Raimi. I eventually stopped wincing in frustration while mouthing “what?!” – and started thinking “ok, I guess that happened.” It gives red meat to the Raimi/Evil Dead fans, and I can see it becoming a minor cult classic because of set pieces like this. I almost admire it, but it’s ultimately outweighed by the parts I didn’t care for. Send Help doesn’t lean enough into any particular tone. It fails to commit, one way or another.

Grade: C+