Send Help has some of the elements that I have recently been raving that I don’t like in modern cinema; namely, characters who are much more despicable than heroic, snarky humor regarding subjects with serious consequences, plot points that defy rational reason and are done almost solely for shock value and nasty, unfettered violence.  It’s not a nice story.  That said, it is quite effectively staged and directed, and very entertaining.  It is unabashedly nasty, which I think rather works in its favor, despite my own squeamishness about such things.

Sam Raimi’s film sets up devoted but unkempt corporate office worker Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) for ridicule and bullying, yet she endures it.  A business trip to Thailand with her sexist boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) and his cronies is abruptly cut short when the plane nosedives into the Indian Ocean and only those two survive, finding themselves on a deserted island.  Roles reverse as resourceful Linda cares for injured Bradley, but he has a difficult time accepting that she is better at actually living than he is.  And things go south from there.

Because the story takes care to establish just how much Linda is taken advantage of at work, we are definitely on her side on the island, even when Bradley’s complaints are reasonable.  But, people being people (so the film posits), unity and cooperation are too much to expect.  It isn’t quite Hell in the Pacific (a good Lee Marvin / Toshiro Mifune drama similar in nature to this, set during World War II and well worth watching), but things get rather nasty between the two.  This is another of the modern stories where characters just cannot bring themselves to be decent to each other — which bothers me some — yet in this scenario the power plays seem realistic, believable and the consequences are indeed earned.  Horror vet Raimi is an ideal choice to film such personally jagged intimacies.

I also appreciate how the film encourages its viewers to judge the two combatants at the end.  It is a thoughtful presentation of two people who just cannot agree on what to do, how to behave, who to trust and how to approach the idea of a return to civilization, which is inevitable.  I think the film makes a great case for Linda’s fate; not so much for Bradley’s.  The entire affair is uncomfortable and not pleasant (though the scenery is) yet its human dimensions are fascinating to contemplate and to witness.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  9 March 2026.