“Send Help” from American director Sam Raimi hit theaters last week, representing a comeback for the director. Raimi appears to have been on somewhat of a hiatus in the last decade, discounting the painfully mediocre CGI fest of 2022 that was “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Many fans of Raimi’s would find it hard to believe he had even directed the latest Doctor Strange movie, considering his notoriety for extensive practical effects, which we thankfully see a return to in his latest work, demonstrating a renewed passion over a paycheck.
What “Send Help” is able to exhibit, and what Raimi as a director is exceedingly good at, is a depiction of insanity. The plot of the film is sort of a modern fantasy: exploited corporate lackey Linda Little (Rachel McAdams) crash lands on a deserted island with her exploitative boss (Dylan O’Brien), who is in the process of stealing her work and firing her. After crashing on the island, however, Linda has survival skills that swap their office roles, making her the taskmaster since their new situation has caused their workplace to devolve back to a meritocracy.
Even though it appears that Linda has justly usurped her crooked boss, Raimi is able to consistently shift audience sympathy when one insane act begets another throughout the film. It is here that Raimi’s physical effects and psychedelic-like visual style come into play, as the audience’s sympathy jarringly flips between the two leads. Raimi’s visual conventions of horror are back too, but ideas like the crash zoom and the random jump scare that now seem very dated and obtuse, seamlessly complement the overall presentation of a downward spiral of psychological drama. The psychedelic aspect of the film, that undoubtedly should have been leaned into more than it was, not only works well for the island setting that the film takes in, but also the corporate setting that the island appears to emulate more and more as the plot unfolds.
Upon a first glance at the deserted island predicament that the two leads find themselves in, you may think that such isolation and circumstance drove them to insanity. Looking at the film holistically, it becomes clear that they were just as insane in the office setting, and they merely have a new backdrop. Linda, who lives only with a bird, attempts to climb a corporate ladder surrounded by people who are repulsed by her. Her boss is even worse, as he has been put in charge of the company through nepotism and carries on the trend by appointing his friends, whilst mercenarily hiring young women in exchange for their sexual favors. Both characters are somewhat deranged before their plane crashes, and not too much changes after; there is still the manipulator and the victim subsisting on the same office politics. The only thing that has changed in the now proverbial office between Linda and her boss is as the poster for the movie suggests: “SHE’S THE BOSS NOW.” Only one of them knows how to work, and the other only knows how to manipulate, and both are invaluable skills in an office and on an island.
No matter how you view the sophistication of an office or other professional setting, there is still a more animalistic, more primal element that remains. The office can be just as gross as the wilderness, in fact, with tuna fish sandwiches in drawers and overbearing sadists. The gore present on the island serves as a more visceral reminder of morally objectionable actions. The bloodshed also reminds us that it is good to see the application of Raimi’s talents to such an appropriate narrative, especially during a time in cinema where the thriller can feel rather clean-cut and dry.
