SEND HELP: Nakedly Ambitious and Afraid…
Linda Liddle may be content to head home to her small apartment and make small talk with her pet parakeet, but she’s expecting big things from changes at the office where she works. The late CEO of the company promised her a serious promotion for the huge amount of work and commitment she’s shown, but when he passes away, his son, Bradley Preston, doesn’t feel remotely bound by such guarantees. In fact, he shivers at the thought of even having to look at Linda and smell her tuna-sandwiched lunches.
Passed over by her new boss and sabotaged by the colleague who got the promotion, she’s thrown a bone by the tech-bros and allowed to travel on their private-jet with them to an important meeting in Asia. But during a storm, the plane nosedives and the only survivors are Linda and Bradley.
Now it’s Linda’s love of the Survivor show that give her the upper-hand over her ill-equipped bully of a boss. But as much as Bradley is desperate to get off their castaway isle, Linda is just as secretly eager to keep and exploit her new advantage and extend their situation… ruthlessly if she has to.
But just how far will each go to avoid a permanent severance package?
*spoilers*
In multiplexes filled to the cinematic brim with rather predictable franchise offerings, sometimes you simply need a guilty-pleasure and the latest production from director Sam Raimi could be just the R-rated ticket. The story of the powerplay between marooned enemies is rich with dramatic possibilities, both comedic and dramatic.
The rather smart thing about Twentieth Century Studios‘ Send Help is that while it’s framed with dark comedy and broad stroked peril along the way, both Sam Raimi hallmarks, it paints both our main characters as not being without some problematic character flaws and askew-reasonings that self-sabotages their prospects. Yes, Linda’s completely wronged by the company she’s devoted to, sidelined by misogynistic pigs and cheated out of credit that she richly deserves, but she can be her own worst enemy and is awkward on an Olympic level in an office environment – one in which she had hoped to be promoted. Equally Bradley is a tech-bro douchebag of epic proportions, self-serving, condescending and manipulative and someone who deserves a lot of what’s coming to him… but he’s not entirely wrong to think that Linda’s considerable spreadsheet skills and commitment don’t completely cover her lack of social awareness with colleagues – though he’s hardly trying to help her.
Though the film is more akin to a savage Naked and Afraid outing, it’s Linda’s Survivor obsession that serves her well on the island – with the boardroom tables turned, she’s the one with the primal ‘corporate’ power – immediately able to craft a shelter, scavenge for food and hit the basics of survival. You instantly applaud her chance to finally be appreciated. Of course, Bradley is, at first, resentful that this low-level employee has the upper-hand against him, but is smart enough to be aware that their – particularly his – survival may well count on Linda not abandoning him to the elements and growing in his awareness that Linda might not have a speedy rescue down as her top priority. He’ll humour her now and fire her later as necessary.
Rachel McAdams is quite brilliant, shifting from a becalmed and awkward trauma survivor to vengeful predator in a way that would give Michelle Pfeiffer a run for her feline money in Batman Returns. She – and the character – revel in the advantages Linda possesses over Bradley’s inability to adapt quickly and her newfound sassier attitude. (She notes that Bradley’s attempt to contact the outside world is a collection of sticks on the beach that spell out the giant word HEPL…) Better known for a different type of quirky movie, it’s clear McAdams has grabbed the opportunity to do something more left-field with both hands.
But in what largely amounts to a two-hander, Dylan O’Brien (once best known for his role in The Maze Runner and the nearly fatal injuries he received after a stunt when dramatically wrong) gives as good as he gets and proves interesting enough to stretch beyond a mere boo-hiss factor. It’s easy and entirely reasonable to hate Bradley, it becomes less easy to completely support Linda’s overt moves against him. You’ll never champion him, but O’Brien does give the arrogant executive some nuanced moments.
(In smaller roles you’ll also find Edyll Ismail as Bradley’s fiancee Zuri, Xavier Samuel as Donovan – who takes all Linda’s credit, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him Dennis Haysbert cameo as an executive less than pleased with the company’s change in leadership and eagle-eyed viewers will spot a painting of Preston Snr. depicting a familiar Raimi collaborator…)
With both the main stars clearly game to throw themselves fully into the mix, Raimi lets the fist and projectiles fly. As you’d expect from Raimi, in between the moments of more subtle menace and barbed banter are the actual, bloody threats of genuine bodily harm and totally batshit bonkers grand-guignol violence. Among the tropical vistas (mainly filmed in Thailand), there’s blood, sweat and tears and rumbles in the jungle. During some of the confrontations that begin to escalate, each of our ‘castaways’ inflict bodily-damage on the other that’s deliberately high on the ‘ewwwww‘ factor and hard to watch. The film’s secret weapon – as well as the good casting – is how those elements and lack of boundaries swing the power-plays between them. Who is the most dangerous in this alt-cutthroat environment? Is Bradley a Patrick Bateman or Jordan Belfort? Is Linda an Annie Wilkes? You’ll find at least some of your sympathies twisting and turning at the ruthless ways each takes to secure their dominance.
The catch of this almost mutually-assured destruction is that the film, delightfully cynical (and much of a guilty-pleasure throughout) doesn’t quite know how to resolve the impasse it has created. There’s an argument that the pay-off is not cynical enough and that Raimi is reining himself in a little by the time the credits roll, where he could have gone for an even darker ending… so the existing denouement and revelations may or may not completely satisfy.
However, all in all, there are some great moments and performances here and, if indeed, the film is no more than a rabid guilty pleasure with a side-salad of pain, then it’s worth the mix.
8/10
SEND HELP had a digital release on 31st March and is scheduled to be released on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray on 21st April…