FILM REVIEW
SEND HELP
Rated R
113 Minutes
Released January 30th
This movie is not what you expect it to be, as you are drawn into a corporate workplace drama in the opening frames and then experience an extremely realistic plane crash into the ocean, at once intensely frightening and visually gorgeous. Director Sam Raimi is known for playing with his audience with the same glee that he conjures up to drop his characters into skin-crawling predicaments and anti-relationships.
Yes, anti-relationship is a word that well describes the dynamics of the people who take over the screen here. Every time you think a certain dynamic is going to materialize between the two protagonists, “Linda,” played fiercely by Rachel McAdams, and “Bradley,” who is brought to gloriously narcissistic life by Dylan O’Brien, you realize you’ve been had by the director.
Regardless of the solid marketing campaign of this movie as a horror film, that’s not what it is. It’s a psychological dive into some dark caverns of personality and behavior. It’s not about unrealistic monsters; it’s all human, even the most terrorizing moments. The characters one-up each other with their passive-aggressive volleys, which are hilarious, because we’ve all witnessed them played out in real life.
That Send Help has been branded as a horror film is understandable from a marketing standpoint, but misleading. It’s really a psychological thriller/comedy/anti-buddy/anti-rom-com movie. The premise of the story is that tables are turned – super smart office nerd worker bee and egotistical, conceited young CEO are marooned together on an isolated island. Whatever you think is going to happen, well…don’t think that.
Linda is a huge fan of the long-running show Survivor, so she’s learned a few things. Bradley is a fish-out-of-water, but to be fair, turns out to be more responsive than Tom Hanks’ ball “Wilson” in Castaway. Director Sam Raimi brought in Australian survivalist expert Kylie Furneaux as a consultant to add realism to the plight of these two survivors, in building a shelter, forging natural tools and survival items, making fire, and collecting water.
Shot in Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, Thailand, and Los Angeles, this movie is worth watching for the cinematography alone. Even the plane crash has a beauty in its terror.
Cinematographer Bill Pope has an impressive body of work that includes films such as Thor: Love and Thunder, Charlie’s Angels, Baby Driver, Men in Black, The Matrix, and Spider-Man anthologies. The force of the ocean is captured as well as I’ve ever seen it on film, even in classic surfing films, although one scene of huge waves looks out of place in the normally calm waters near the small island. I can forgive that for the story. This is worth seeing in IMAX if you can, but it’s even more impressive in a normal theatre.
Danny Elfman’s music is perfect, not there when it’s not needed, perfectly chosen when it’s crucial to a scene.
This is the first time McAdams and O’Brien have worked together. McAdams was born in Ontario, Canada. Her mom is a nurse, her dad a truck driver. She got involved in acting at age 13 and went to a Shakespeare summer camp. She has immersed herself in the art since then, working in film and TV for over 25 years. Her breakout role was “Regina George” in Mean Girls in 2004. She still carries that misfit teenage angst into her later roles, and it makes her seem ageless – including in this role of Linda.
Similarly, O’Brien, as he was growing up in NYC, originally wanted to be a cinematographer like his dad. But then he won the role of goofy sidekick “Stiles” in the Teen Wolf series in 2011, and from then on put all his focus on acting. His film debut was in Upright Citizens Brigade’s High Road (2011), and he has done more work in film and TV than most actors twice his age. Like McAdams, he harbors a youthfulness that makes him seem younger than his real age. At 34, he is only now transitioning into more adult roles, though still bringing that “goofy sidekick” quality to the table, which he does so well in this movie.
Director Sam Raimi has created his own brand of deadly, sometimes hilarious slapstick comedy. Inspired by the Three Stooges in his teens, Raimi and longtime collaborator Bruce Campbell first came to the attention of critics and audiences with the now classic The Evil Dead in 1981, a campy comedy horror thriller. Raimi has gone on to direct such blockbusters as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the Spider-Man films. Raimi pays homage to Campbell in Send Help by using his face as the portrait of Bradley’s late father hanging in his office.
Perhaps there is meaning behind Bradley’s hair that seems to stay perfectly coifed and trimmed throughout the ordeal, as if he’s still working out of his C-suite even on the island, while Linda’s hair goes wild, and her pants get more stained and torn daily as she handles the load.
Go into Send Help ready to laugh at humanity’s attempts to grasp at the ledge of power, which you’ll see is symbolized here as a real ledge.
Enjoy this movie for what it is, a journey to a reality vastly different from your own, inhabited by familiar people. It’s unsettling, but it tells a lot of truth about the dark side of human nature and about our resilience, with comedy lurking behind every devastating disaster.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com.
