**© Raimi Productions and 20th Century Studios**

Send Help – Film Review

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Dennis Haysbert

Director: Sam Raimi

Synopsis: Two employees become stranded on a desert island after being the sole survivors of a deadly plane crash…

Review: Navigating the world of work can feel like a lottery. If fortune smiles upon you, you might hit the jackpot and land a job that you truly love, surrounded by a fantastic team that brings laughter and camaraderie as you go about your tasks. Furthermore, you may have a boss who genuinely supports your growth, helping you harness your potential. However, some may find themselves stuck in a gruelling daily grind, trapped in a thankless role under the thumb of an overbearing manager for a company that does not value them in the slightest. Now, imagine flipping that script entirely: what if the employee suddenly found themselves in charge during a harrowing, life-or-death scenario? This intriguing setup sets the stage for a gripping survival story brought to life by the visionary master of horror Sam Raimi.

Linda Liddle (McAdams) is a diligent strategist at an unnamed Fortune 500 financial management company. She is good at her job, but is not always aware of her unkempt appearance and her socially awkward mannerisms, which alienate her colleagues and her new boss, Bradley Preston (O’Brien). Linda is expecting a promotion, but is left furious when this opportunity is awarded to one of Bradley’s frat buddies. To add insult to injury, Bradley seeks to humiliate Linda further by demoting her to a dead-end role, but not before taking her on an overseas business trip to help close an important deal. However, the plane suffers a catastrophic failure en route and crashes into the sea, with only Linda and an injured Bradley as the sole survivors. With no immediate hope of rescue, the two must put aside their differences and fight to survive. However, the ace up Linda’s sleeve is that she once auditioned for the game show Survivor and possesses the skills to help them both survive.

After a nine-year hiatus from directing, Sam Raimi pushed the boundaries to the limit by pushing the Marvel Cinematic Universe into its first big-screen foray into the realm of horror. Alas, such are the confines of the MCU, it held him back and prevented him from venturing deep into the realm of brutal and bloody horror that helped him to make his name in the 80s with the Evil Dead trilogy and latterly 2009’s Drag Me to Hell. Absolutely no such restrictions are holding him back here, enabling him to play in the endless sandpit of a desert island, where you never know what may be lurking in the terrain and resources to stay alive are few and far between.

Gone is the office environment where the boss sits at the top of the corporate pyramid, looking down on their employees with complete and total authority. Such a power dynamic where biases, corporate misogyny and sexism can go unchecked simply does not hold water on a remote island where civilisation is far off into the distance and no amount of money, power, and control can change your circumstances. Damien Shannon and Mark Swift’s script is a delightful and entertaining examination of this upended power dynamic. Imagine if Cast Away and Triangle of Sadness were combined into one big melting pot (minus the yelling at volleyballs in the case of the former) with an extra side of “eat the rich” and Raimi’s signature gore. This is the delicious and bloody outcome.

Having worked together on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Raimi was eager to reteam with Rachel McAdams, and it is easy to see why. Her performance is simply sensational and might just be a career-best. At first glance, it might seem a bit of a stretch for such a charismatic actor to play a socially inept and dishevelled loner who lives with her pet bird, but McAdams leans into it and completely owns it. Like a superhero, when they wash up on that island, off go the glasses and suddenly the Linda we know is gone. In her place is someone who is ready to take charge, and she will not stand for any nonsense from the man who, on paper, is her boss.

But a new location means new rules. It is delightful to see the role reversal, with O’Brien equally brilliant as the smug, pompous, and utterly full-of-himself CEO who has immense difficulty accepting the fact that the power he once wielded over this woman has been swept away. Though when you’re as entitled as he is, that is not something he will give up without a fight. The ensuing power struggle is utterly riveting and leaves you wondering how far these two will go to assert their authority over the other. You might root for her to begin with, given the fact that he is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, but Linda pushes this to its absolute limits. In typical Raimi fashion, there are some particularly gory scenes, and one dark, ominous moment in particular that will likely have at least 50% of the audience squirming with nervousness and dread.

Having two souls engaged in a psychological battle, on an island with a finite amount of space and resources, runs the risk of getting a bit stale. However, thanks to Raimi’s exciting and lively direction, Bill Pope’s lush cinematography, and the charismatic performances, any lapses in the film’s pacing are momentary and not enough to completely skew its momentum. With a $40m budget, perhaps this was stretched too thin, as certain elements of the CGI left a bit to be desired and could have been spruced up. Nevertheless, the film meets all the key performance indicators and is a perfect illustration of why bosses and company executives everywhere would be wise never to belittle or diminish their employees. You just never know when you might need their expertise to get out of a tricky life-or-death situation.