Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien starrer Send Help, or should I say “Send Hepl,” is an on-the-nose class satire that focuses on the mistreatment of the working class. I did find myself going back to Triangle of Sadness on several occasions while watching this film. Especially because they’re also stranded on an exotic and tropical island. Interestingly, I’ve just realized that it’s also thematically similar to Park Chan-wook’s latest, No Other Choice, but this one seems to be more focused on the thrills, whereas that one was more about the extended outcome of losing a job. I do think there is some overlap in the themes of both films, especially with an unhappy employee, so I don’t think I’ll be far off if I say this is the beginning of a theme. I did call the class satire wave coming right after “Triangle of Sadness” came out, because this is just how I’ve realized Hollywood works. In this case, I think working-class themes are going to be a big thing in the coming year or two. With that said, though, let’s jump straight into Sam Raimi’s Send Help.
Spoiler Alert
Why Does Linda Not Get Promoted?
The film begins with Linda Liddle, an excited employee, being all pumped about her impending promotion to VP, thanks to her dedication to her craft. However, when her boss kicks the bucket, his son takes over and decides to promote his frat buddy, Donovan. The first time Linda shows any signs of aggression is when she learns of this promotion and decides to walk into Bradley’s office. When she gets there, she tells Bradley immediately that the job was meant to be hers. But he tells her that she’s just not ready for it, and she’s not a people person like Donny is. This hurts Linda in more ways than one. Linda’s clearly anti-social, not because she doesn’t like people, or because she’s not friendly. It’s because she’s too friendly and easily bullied. Nobody seems to like her at work. Not the big guys, but not her fellow employees either, but one thing is for sure: she’s really good at her job.
Now, Linda doesn’t have a relationship with Bradley at all, so he probably doesn’t know how good she really is. He simply says she’s not good enough and makes her cry. This leaves her absolutely devastated, but as a last resort, he challenges her to fix an Appendix in a merger deal with some group in Thailand, and if she manages to do it, he’ll reconsider her for the job. This is obviously a big lie, because he has no intention of letting go of his buddy, and the fact that Linda eats tuna in the office and not in the break room has already turned him into a hater. This is the beginning of the animosity between Linda and Bradley, but it’s only amplified when Linda finds the load of men, who are on the private jet to Thailand with her, are watching her “Survivor” audition tape. If there were a last straw, this would be it. The dude’s laughing at her being excited to be adventurous on a remote island and still doesn’t clock that she actually enjoys it later on. It’s all fun and games before the plane very suddenly and very quickly goes down. In the process, Linda doesn’t hesitate to let go of Donny boy, who very unceremoniously asks her to literally get out of her seat and give it to her when the plane sprouts a massive hole in its side.
How Is Bradley’s Masculinity Challenged?
While class is a big issue in this film, because Linda’s an employee, whereas Bradley is a rich spoilt brat, there’s also a massive conversation to be had about the gender dynamic between these two individuals. Given Bradley is a frat boy, you already know what he’s like with women. But we see this specifically when he interacts with a woman who shows up to work for him before Linda enters the room and ruins that conversation. “Are you willing to go above and beyond for me?” is what Linda hears him say to the woman before she interrupts. Now, Linda uses this exact phrase after Bradley comes crawling back after the second time he tries to say he can do what she’s doing to survive just as easily, or maybe even better than her. It’s interesting that he interprets this as her asking him to basically prostitute himself, implying that’s what he was expecting of the interviewee he was talking to back in the office. He’s the big dog there, and he’s so self-assured that he doesn’t even worry about consequences.
On the island, the dynamic instantly switches, because Linda’s the smarter of the two, but even physically, she’s the only one who is able-bodied at the start, thanks to the injury on his leg. We’ve got to remember, not only has Bradley grossly underestimated Linda, but he also sees her as a “homemaker” in the wild, just because she’s trying to get them food, water, and shelter. Ironically, the second she leaves him alone, he realizes how important it is that he stick with her, because the little baby boy can’t do anything for himself. After his first two attempts to “be a man” end in failure, he bides his time before the third one, using the opportunity to pick up all the skills she can teach him. The aftermath of his third escape attempt is the worst, when he gives her poison berries and then tries to escape on a raft, only for her to save him from drowning and then puke up all the poison right onto his face.
After this, as revenge, Linda uses a blue-ringed octopus to paralyze him and then threatens his family jewels. We see him cry like a baby, only for her to pull out a bloody rat from under, but she’s showing him how serious she is with this threat, so he never tries to escape again, on pain of castration. The guy who was once laughing at her survival skills is now threatened by those same skills. The dynamic switches so fast; if he had only surrendered his masculinity, he might’ve survived this whole ordeal. Plus, Linda also calls him submissive in their dynamic, which clashes with how he’s lived his life so far. Additionally, it’s interesting to note that when they get drunk, Bradley opens up to Linda and acts vulnerable by talking about his parents. On the other hand, Linda reveals a dark side of herself, one that he would’ve never expected. She talks about how she basically sent her husband to die when he drunkenly sexually assaulted her, and she simply let him take his car keys, knowing he wouldn’t survive being that drunk.
What’s on the other side of the cross mark?
When Bradley is able to walk a little, Linda takes him on a hike up the ridge to show him what’s on the island and around it. She makes it look like there’s nothing around and there’s no way they can hope to be saved. But the truth is, that day when she saw a boat and disappeared from sight so that they wouldn’t find them was when she also discovered a big billionaire businessman’s mansion at the other end of this island. She tells Bradley that if you go towards the rocks that look like a cross mark, you will end up itching your body for days, because that’s what the thorny and poisonous bushes there would do to your skin. But the truth is, she just doesn’t want him to discover this glass mansion.
During Send Help’s ending, Bradley runs towards the rocks after the duo have a serious physical fight. He’s nearly gouged her eye out and pulled out a patch of her scalp, and she’s stabbed him in the side with a knife. Sure, physically, since he’s a man, he’s stronger than her, but she knows what she’s doing here, and she also knows the island. Suddenly, she sounds like Alexa, in the glass house, voice echoing across the rooms through the speakers.
Who Is The Real Monster?
Earlier in the film, the duo had a conversation about monsters and how they’re created, not born. In the final moments Bradley and Linda have together, when Bradley deceives her by telling her he loves her, it becomes clear that both of them are monsters. When Zuri finally found Linda, the latter didn’t just kill the woman; she also killed the man who came with her, a complete innocent. I guess one could imagine Zuri is also a shallow, rich woman who could be mistreating her employees, but this is all a guessing game, and we’re in the same position as Linda. But in this moment, we’ve already lost all sympathy for Linda, but are we still rooting for her? Well, I’d say yes, because at the end of the day, Bradley is truly the bad guy. No matter how much Linda does for him, it won’t be enough when they go back to the real world, and she goes back to being his employee. She has no choice but to kill him, making her the monster he created. Sure, Bradley told Linda earlier that he was neglected by his father and grew up with a scary mother, but we could imagine that was made up, considering the manipulative nature of Bradley’s character. Ultimately, we’re still looking at him through Linda-tinted glasses, so the only truth remaining is that he’s the real monster, whereas she’s just surviving.
In Send Help’s ending, Linda returns to the real world, the only survivor of this story, but she’s now also rich and famous thanks to her inspiring story. Not just that, she’s now beloved, becoming the epitome of what Bradley said she was not, proving that she was capable of much more than he expected of her. All she really needed was the chance to shine through. So, Linda killed Bradley and then made her raft and drifted off to the real world. She’d known all along how to build one sturdy enough to survive the waves; she just hadn’t trusted Bradley with the knowledge. She probably threw Bradley into the ocean or left him at the beach. Oh, also, let’s not forget the diamond ring she swallowed; maybe she’s kept it as a keepsake, or maybe she sold it to make money. But that would prove that she killed Zuri. Maybe it’ll be something she’ll be seen wearing in the future? Linda is a product of her circumstances, and she’ll know what to do if she ever needs to survive again.
