The fruits of entitlement face off with workers controlling the means of production in Sam Raimi’s scathingly brilliant, and wickedly funny, take on gender politics and economic power, SEND HELP. Sure, we’ve seen this scenario before in THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, SWEPT AWAY (the Wertmuller version, please), and most recently in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, which owes much to the previous two.
Our protagonists/allegorical characters are Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) and Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien). She’s a crack numbers whiz in the strategy and planning department of the whoppingly successful consulting company that Bradley has just inherited from his father (a portrait of Bruce Campbell in a piquant cameo). He has not, however, inherited the promise his father made to Linda to promote her to a VP position in recognition of her seven years of exemplary service to the company. Integral service, one might say. Bradley, alas, is a bro who thinks he is smarter than he is. He takes one look at the schlub of a business whiz and dismisses her value to the company with a forced smile and a visible shudder. And in any case, he would rather promote is old frat brother and golfing buddy to the position instead of the mousy, and tuna bedecked, Linda. He does, however, bring her along to a crucial meeting in Thailand as a sop after she discovers that the promotion is not hers. This is when chance, or perhaps karma, steps in as the place crashes with exceptional terror into the ocean en route, and Bradley is forced to depend on Linda for survival after they wash up on a deserted island. That Bradley and his bros have just been laughing at Linda’s audition tape for the television competition, Survivor, only adds to the delicious irony of it all.
It goes as expected at first, with Bradley still assuming he is in charge even as it’s Linda who builds the shelters, gathers the rainwater, and finds the food to keep them going. The he is drooling and helpless with a leg injury does nothing to deter his supercilious attitude until the expected comeuppance with a bout of dehydration forces his rethinking of his place in this new food chain.
If this were all the film covered, it would be a nicely rendered meditation of the oppression of the working class, but this is a film that dares to consider the repressed resentments of being oppressed and the refusal of the elite to accept that they might not be as important in the scheme of things as they would like to be. The power dynamics shift, but the underlying tensions are always present, even as Linda comes into her own, the confidence of thriving under pressure sharpens her wit and awakens her resolve to seek retribution for previous wrongs by meeting them head on instead of swallowing her pride and smiling through. On the surface, they become a team, with her in charge, but beneath the surface, tensions roil as power refuses to cede its dominance and the previously oppressed toys with the discomfort the new circumstances engender in the formerly ruling class. It’s a delightful romp, rife with comedy and a particularly gruesome boar hunt that unleashes something primal in Linda while an unfortunate encounter with a beetle humbles Bradley in ways he could not have previously imagined.
Never fear, though the story veers a bit into BLUE LAGOON territory, it’s a mere way stop, and perhaps a necessary one considering that they are, once the fire is lit and the food supply assured, in paradise. The subsumed tension simmers and erupts when least expected, sometimes with projectile vomiting and spurting blood. The horror is real and builds both organically and geometrically as the story progresses with satisfying authenticity. The climax, bloody, twisty, and featuring metaphors and paybacks of the most, ahem, pointed variety, is as heart stopping as it is inevitable.
Kudos to McAdams and O’Brien. Linda’s growth is a natural extrapolation of the awkward character we first meet making lamentable jokes to her new boss and, when finally realizing she is the butt of the joke before the crash, making painfully visceral the struggle she feels between pride in her work and the mocking condescension of her boss that leads her to tearfully delete the document that can seal the deal for them upon arrival in Thailand. As for O’Brien, he’s the ineffectual man-child and the infuriating infant with too much power. A scene that finds him helplessly facing the literal loss of his manhood is a brilliant use of gurgles and goggle eyes that conveys everything necessary for us to feel both sympathy and a nagging sense of glee over the poetic justice of it all.
And that’s a tribute to director Sam Raimi, who doesn’t feel the need to make every moment of his film one that keeps us on the edge of our seat. As mentioned above, he builds slowly, faking out the audience and then swooping in quickly with what we kinda sorta expected would happen. It’s validating and exhilarating all at once.
SEND HELP makes the abstraction of corporate indifference a wild and wise ride. Its understanding of human nature, and its refusal to compromise is thoughtful, anarchic, and ultimately the ultimate power trip. My only complaint is that while it teaches us how to identify toxic berries and make a fire out of almost nothing, it doesn’t share how to brew alcohol under primitive conditions. Never mind. That’s what the internet is for.
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