Send Help: Movie Review

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien
Director: Sam Raimi

If Misery collided with Survivor, Castaway and Sam Raimi comedy horror, its bastard child would be this delightfully delicious movie.

Starring McAdams as the much-maligned, put upon Linda Liddle, an office employee who's put seven years into the company she's been at, only to see the founder die and his spoilt son Bradley (O'Brien) take the helm. To make matters worse, she's denied the partner role she was promised after years of due diligence and mocked by the meathead bros in charge. And to compound that, she's brought along on a boys' work trip to Bangkok to solve a problem, after which she will be, unbeknownst to her, thrown out from the company she's loved.

But when the plane they're all on goes down in a storm (one of the opening salvos from Raimi that delivers laughs, horror and sly notes on powerplays), Linda and Bradley are the only survivors on a desert island - and suddenly, with Bradley injured, Linda's now the one in charge...

Send Help is inventively bonkers, but smart enough to know what will deliver the most of the psychological warfare that erupts a la The Roses. sending up Survivor, the romance of two people stranded alone on a desert island and giving it some ground-level chasing through the woods that have become his trademark, Raimi's take on the genre proves to be a smartly engaging time.

There's a joy to how Raimi delivers the film's stand-out moments and the mix of gore, horror and comedy that worked so effectively in the likes of Drag Me To Hell come vividly to the fore here, proving once again that a roller-coaster ride such as this one is more than worth jumping on for. (Though there is an argument that a slight trim in the back third would have greatly benefited proceedings.)

Yet it would be nothing were it not for McAdams' committed and at times, subtle performance. Growing through the humiliation she's afforded early on, she delivers a performance that's unglamorous, stripped back, raw and powerful, yet comedically adept and aware of everything that's required of her. 

Send Help is the kind of film which ironically needs no help of its own. It's got a perverse knowing wink playfulness that's infectious, a perverse streak that's contagious and such a perverse desire to please that you'd be a fool to ignore.