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In Send Help, Sam Raimi revels in letting two unlikable characters played by two talented actors go at it while stranded on a deserted island—a combustible but not quite explosive equation as it turns out.
Rachel McAdams plays the extremely intelligent but socially awkward (and female) Linda, who is also a rabid fan of the TV show Survivor. When she and her horrid (misogynistic) boss Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) survive a plane crash and end up on a tropical island together, the power dynamics are shifted as Linda proves to have the skills needed to survive, if not thrive. That doesn’t sit too well with Brad.
Send Help spirals from there, inexplicably going unpredictable directions while also ending up in a very predictable place. Where Raimi keeps you guessing, the movie operates with maniacal glee, quintessential Raimi entertainment for better or worse. Scene by scene Send Help is ridiculous fun, winking at the audience as things go sideways. Raimi keeps you guessing—are we watching a thriller? A dark comedy? A rom-com? Something else entirely?—and that mystery keeps you invested.
And yet it feels a tad sloppy. It’s clear Raimi and the cast and crew had a blast making this thing, but the story never fully gels. Raimi never achieves true momentum.
It doesn’t help that you can easily guess the big reveal, if it counts as that; Send Help’s third act marches toward its inevitable conclusion, an exercise that is still somewhat entertaining even as it edges into tedium.
The two leads really elevate the material, however. McAdams delivers the type of performance that won’t win awards—Send Help isn’t horror, but it plays with similar genre elements—but is brutally good. It’s hard to imagine too many other actors achieving what she does here.
O’Brien is also excellent, reveling in the opportunity to play someone wickedly awful and yet whose patheticness makes you sympathize with him, or at least yearn for a redemption arc that may or may not come.
Send Help isn’t generic, safe filmmaking, and for that it deserves to be seen. And yet it never quite finds its footing, opportunity lost to the ocean waves.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.