Rachel McAdams delivers a masterclass in physical comedy and transformation in Sam Raimi’s Send Help, but the film’s reluctance to fully embrace its darker premise leaves audiences wanting more bite from what could have been a savage corporate satire.
The movie positions McAdams as Linda Liddle, an office drone who’s spent decades grinding away at quarterly reports while watching less qualified men leapfrog her up the corporate ladder.
When she and her new CEO Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) crash-land on a deserted island, their power dynamic flips completely.
But here’s where things get complicated: the film wants to have its desert island cake and eat it too.
The Casting Conundrum That Undermines Everything
Linda is written as someone society has already begun rendering invisible in middle age. Bradley, upon meeting her, fixates on tuna fish at the corner of her mouth rather than anything she’s saying.
The problem? That woman is Rachel McAdams.
Her “dimpled beauty doesn’t actually go away just because she starts off the movie in baggy knitwear, orthopedic shoes, and unwashed hair,” as critics have noted. While McAdams has 13 years on O’Brien, suggesting a “yawning attractiveness gap” between them feels disingenuous at best.
Once stranded, Linda—a dedicated Survivor fan who’s done extensive wilderness research—absolutely flourishes. She crafts “a hilariously chic sun hat out of palm fronds like it was nothing” and creates restaurant-worthy sashimi platters from foraged ingredients.
McAdams’ Comedy Chops Shine Through
What makes Send Help worth watching is McAdams herself, who proves once again why she’s one of Hollywood’s most versatile performers.
Her breakouts came through Rob Schneider’s The Hot Chick and Canadian series Slings & Arrows, establishing her talent for physical comedy early on. Yet somehow, perhaps because she moves between genres so effortlessly, “it still feels like a joyous surprise” every time she delivers comedic gold.
Remember her “blissfully insincere” delivery in Game Night?
Oh no, he died!
She brings that same energy here. When Bradley attempts to reassert authority by firing her on the island, she shoots back sarcastically:
Oh, am I? Oh no!
McAdams throws herself completely into scenes where she gets “drenched in blood and mucus while hunting a boar,” displaying “waggly-limbed glee” when discovering a conch. Her commitment to Linda’s transformation from corporate doormat to survival expert provides the film’s beating heart.
Raimi Returns to His Roots
Director Sam Raimi, tackling his first non-franchise project since Drag Me to Hell, clearly relishes the film’s gore and gross-out moments. Written by Baywatch scribes Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, Send Help owes considerable debt to class-warfare satires like Triangle of Sadness and Swept Away.
Both those films “found rich veins of material in upending the established hierarchy among characters when they’re removed from society.”
The most satisfying moments? Watching Linda bring Bradley—a villain “airlifted out of an ’80s movie” with his frat loyalties and complete ignorance of discrimination lawsuits—to heel while he flounders on an injured leg.
Where Send Help Loses Its Nerve
Early on, Linda deliberately turns down rescue, enjoying her newfound power too much to return to civilization. This setup promises something deliciously dark and uncomfortable.
But then the film blinks.
After establishing that Linda harbors an unrequited crush on Bradley, Send Help “can’t bring itself to go anywhere genuinely uncomfortable with this dynamic.” By nixing any possibility of sexual coercion—explicit or implicit—the movie seems to want Linda positioned as inherently better than those who’ve oppressed her.
Instead, it feels like avoidance.
The film focuses on bloodstains and brutality while skirting around “the character in all her unruly, unshaved, single-lady yearning.” True equality would mean allowing Linda to be “in all ways just as monstrously self-interested as the men.”
The Office Drone Deserves To Be Grotesque
Linda has already committed acts of brutality to preserve her dominance. She’s proven herself capable of violence and deception.
So why stop there?
By pulling back from truly uncomfortable territory, Send Help undermines its own premise. Linda from accounting—”or as she’d correct, strategy and planning”—deserves the opportunity to be fully, unapologetically grotesque.
Bradley represents every smirking golf buddy who’s stolen credit, every boss who’s overlooked qualified women, every colleague who’s made someone feel invisible. Having Linda dismantle him physically and psychologically should be just the beginning, not carefully contained within acceptable boundaries.
A Missed Opportunity for Savage Satire
What could have been a razor-sharp examination of workplace inequality, gender dynamics, and power becomes something safer and more sanitized than its setup promises.
McAdams’ performance deserves a script willing to match her fearlessness. She clearly came ready to play someone messy, desperate, and willing to cross lines. Send Help gives her moments to shine but ultimately treats Linda’s potential darkness as something to acknowledge rather than explore.
For viewers hungry for workplace revenge fantasies or survival thrillers that truly subvert expectations, Send Help offers appetizers without delivering the main course. McAdams proves once again she’s game for anything—now she just needs material brave enough to meet her halfway.
Linda Liddle deserved better than being smoothed down into palatability. After decades of invisible labor and stolen credit, she earned the right to be completely, uncomfortably, gloriously monstrous.