Send Help review: Rachel McAdams vs Dylan O’Brien in fun survival thriller
Rachel McAdams? Dylan O’Brien? Sam Raimi? Sold! That’s all I needed to know to get excited for the new survival thriller Send Help.
This horror-comedy revolves around Linda Liddle (McAdams), a dowdy and loyal strategy and planning employee who is passed over for a promised promotion when her boss’s sexist son, Bradley (O’Brien), takes over the firm. He has all the power and she has none. Fortunately for Linda, the tables turn when they are involved in a plane crash en route to Bangkok and are the only passengers to wash up on a deserted island.
Bradley is injured and not remotely cut out for island life, whereas Linda isn’t just surviving; she’s thriving! As a lifelong Survivor fan, Linda is built for this place and feels powerful, confident, and free. She belongs here. Naturally, the rich and successful Bradley doesn’t like the role reversal and the shift in the power dynamics – he feels weak, helpless and submissive and hates that she’s in charge now.
These dynamics are already juicy and interesting, but your allegiance to either Bradley or Linda will be tested over the course of the movie. At the beginning, it’s very easy to be on Team Linda, but the waters get muddy when it becomes clear that Linda doesn’t want to leave – she is living her best life and has transformed from a frumpy mess to an island goddess. From this point, both our characters make questionable choices and the scales tip back and forth between who is the protagonist and antagonist.
Send Help is a very entertaining movie with a ton of laugh-out-loud moments, blood, brutal violence and gross-out scenes that made me hide behind my fingers in disgust. O’Brien is responsible for a lot of the laughs. He’s not afraid to look ugly and foolish, and he really throws himself into being the sore loser. This marks new territory for McAdams and it’s a delight to see her in such a different film and an unexpected role. She has been away from our screens for three years and I’m thrilled to see her back. More of this please!
It’s impressive that screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon managed to sustain a 115-minute movie that is primarily just two people trying to survive on a Thai beach. While I loved the concept, the ever-evolving dynamics and the performances, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped and felt like it was missing something. Without going into spoilers, there is a pivotal moment where I thought Linda crossed a line and was actually disappointed. I also really disliked the ending because it didn’t feel true to her character, and I wasn’t a fan of the poor-quality CGI.
I wanted to love this as it’s rare to get an original blockbuster these days, but it lost its magic in the second half, and the ending did not work for me at all.
In cinemas from Thursday 5th February