Marvel really put the shackles on Sam Raimi. The Multiverse of Madness could have been the MCU’s diabolical horror movie, but too caught in its own machine to really go for the crazy. Same goes for Rachel McAdams, who had a blast on Game Night then promptly buried those performances. What happens when two pent up weirdos can’t take it any more? Send Help is less a title than more a plea: see Sam and Rachel’s movie…or we’re gonna get weirder…and maybe deadlier.
Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is that office drone we all have met. An accounting strategist/savant surrounded by positive posters and tuna, Linda is kept around for her good work but constantly passed over for Vice President roles to stereotypical MBA Bros. Her brief hopes that new CEO Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) would be different dissipate too, as her “peers” openly mock her Survivor submission tape onboard an overseas flight to Bangkok. Only something drastic like a plan crash into a Pacific atoll could alter Linda’s life trajectory. Well, as fate would have it…
The last time Sam Raimi had this much fun was Drag Me to Hell in 2009. Send Help to his biggest OG fans, who had a heart attack after they realized the Evil Dead 2 guy was back. It’s like riding a bike for him, wonderfully balancing laughs and horror like that’s an easy thing for every director. The plane crash is perfect: wonderfully terror ridden until we’re punctuated with a perverse, yet wonderfully tension diffusing joke out of nowhere. The island is even better; the minute Linda says she saw some boar tracks, I knew that hunt was going to be hilariously gruesome, and it even surpassed my own expectations. The chess/checkers game between Linda and Bradley then shifts the movie to a strange romcom setup backed by this knife’s edge sinister energy should the uneasy peace teeter too hard off kilter. Eventually we teeter off, but thankfully it’s filled with twists and turns along the way, some you’ll see coming, some you won’t, along the way grossed out, or cackling with uncomfortable glee.
With his drama queen in tow. It’s been too long a journey to put Rachel McAdams back into the lead of a movie. After her supernova start to her career, she’s been content to just be a part of great ensembles, making them better with her presence. Sam Raimi turns Send Help over to McAdams, letting off her shackles to have a ball. She couldn’t have nailed Linda better; I couldn’t help but root for her, but also acknowledge there’s enough screws loose that she’ll never quite have my full support, despite her best intentions. As she gains power on the island, we see that meek peculiar energy transform into something still innately sincere, but much more demented and forthright. A new wrinkle here is the action sequences, of which there are plenty, that she effing nails, especially the boar sequence: her masterpiece. Raimi matched McAdams well with Dylan O’Brien. Bradley has as big an arc as Linda here from CEO to dipshit shoe wearer. We have to believe O’Brien at that douchey beginning is the same O’Brien emotionally broken and helpless; thankfully, he’s up to the task. If the whole movie was just McAdams/O’Brien dialogue, I would have stayed for hours, enjoying all the power jockeying and layers the actors take the dialogue through.
Maybe our comet has returned? Rachel McAdams and Sam Raimi haven’t lost their fastballs, meaning hopefully more bright future fun films, either together or apart. Same for Dylan O’Brien, who should continue to waffle between the douchebag and the helpless cuck. I think that’s the title of his Teen Wolf fan fiction.