A movie like Send Help seems to have arrived at the right time. Following the Texas snow winter storms of 2021, many of these doomsday preppers found themselves unable to survive a week with no electricity.
When the fit really hits the shan, they’re SOL.
Rachel McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a mousey strategist at a financial management who is passed over for a promotion by her supervisors who thinks money, masculinity and managerial authority are all that’s needed to survive.
In a plot set-up that doesn’t sound plausible, Linda is invited by her new boss and trust fund nepo baby, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), along on a business trip to Bangkok so she can help finalize a business merger. But he more or less will let her go after it’s over. While flying across the Pacific Ocean, the charter plane crashes during a storm and Linda survives unscathed. Bradley is the only other one who survives but he’s injured and can’t hardly move. They seek shelter on a remote island in the Gulf of Thailand but Bradley never seems appreciative of her help even at one point indicating he’s still her boss. Instead of grateful for killing a wild boar and providing fresh water, he gets more upset that she hasn’t done much to signal for help.
What you have next is similar to Triangle of Sadness where a person who is more capable of doing survival tactics has control over the wealthy who keep using their money and wealth. But on a remote island, money is only good for kindling for the fire.
Both McAdams and O’Brien bring what’s needed to the roles considering most of the screen time is devoted to their characters. McAdams brings back her Mean Girls era as she proves too many people have underestimated Linda and what she is capable of. And O’Brien has a somewhat punchable face and you can tell his character is used to snapping his fingers so others can do stuff for him.
Sam Raimi directs and delivers his own dark comedy to the “Stranded On An Island” genre.
It’s easy to describe this as Misery meets Cast Away but seeing McAdams turn a little ugly like Annie Wilkes while still being sympathetic to her shows how good a director Raimi is. This isn’t another story about how bad wealthy people nowadays thumbs their noses to other people. All Bradley had to do is be a little more appreciative and helpful when he got over his injuries.
The plot does seem to go a little off the rails with a Deus Ex Machina device in the final act. But I think it has more to say socially about how the wealthy are exploiting nature for their own pleasure for which they don’t even enjoy fully.
Zane Says 