2026 Send Help

• Directed by: Sam Raimi
• Written by: Damian Shannon and Mark Swift
• Stars: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, and Dennis Haysbert
• Run Time: 113 min
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PLM_hV6taw

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

When an employee and the company president are stranded on a tropical island after a plane crash, the boss has to rely on his underling to survive. But things get more complicated and interesting as time goes on. It’s really a good mix of drama, thrills, dark comedy, and horror. It was really good, and there was more to it than we expected.

Spoilery Synopsis

Linda goes to the office and sits in her stereotypical cubicle. Her boss, Donovan, takes her detailed report and takes credit for the whole thing. Linda’s not very popular in the office, maybe a little weird.

Linda thinks she’s next in line for VP when Bradley takes over for his father soon. As she explains things to her pet parrot, we see she has lots of books on her shelf; she’s a big fan of the TV show, “Survivor.”

The next day, Bradley and Donovan get promoted, and Linda gets her lunch on Bradley, who decides to fire her. Donovan gets the job Linda was expecting. She goes in to talk to Bradley about it, and he explains how she’s not ready for a VP yet; he needs more of a “People Person,” or someone who golfs. He’s not super-mean about it, and invites her to a meeting that’s coming up. Linda meets Zuri, Preston’s fiancee. She goes out to the car to cry.

The group boards the plan and talks about golf, while Linda continues working on her reports. They watch Linda’s audition for “Survivor” and laugh about that. Suddenly, the plane lurches, and everyone straps in.

Then it does a lot more than lurch as the whole plane comes apart. There’s a brutal struggle to see who’s going to be thrown out the hole, and then the plane crashes in the ocean.

Linda wakes up on the beach of a small island. She then finds Bradley passed out there as well. While he’s still unconscious, she uses her “Survivor” skills to make shelter and catch water. Bradley wakes up a day and a half later.

Linda makes fire, catches food and water, and sets up a camp, but he’s not appreciative. He’s her boss after all. She gets fed up with his crap and leaves him by himself, with no food or water. By the next day, he’s screaming for her help.

Linda eventually comes back, and now she wants to hunt a boar. That doesn’t go as well as she expected, but she does kill the boar. It’s a bloody mess. They have pig for dinner.

Linda spots a boat and runs to wave at it, but then stops. “Not yet.” Yes, she likes it here. Bradley whines about being here for two weeks, but Linda’s not whining, “It’s not that bad.”

Bradley still thinks he’s the boss, and he can do all the things she can. He can’t. He’s soon down to eating bugs. Linda’s got all kinds of food, and she doesn’t hide the fact. He ends up apologizing for everything. The power dynamic has clearly shifted. They make a sorta-ceasefire.

She leads him way up onto the mountain, but he can barely walk. She shows him a part of the island that’s totally covered in vines and that he should never go over there.

That night, they get drunk, and Linda talks about how her husband died. There’s a huge storm, and they end up hiding in a cave. Their camp is washed away, so they rebuild a new one together.

Bradley makes dinner for them, and Linda falls over; he drugged her. He’s secretly built a raft and stolen some of her supplies. The raft quickly falls apart in the waves. Somehow, Linda rescues Bradley, but then pukes on him repeatedly.

Linda sets down some new rules. She drugs him right back with a poisonous octopus. Then she pulls out a knife and makes him a eunuch. No, not really, but she could have.

A boat pulls up, Zuri, Bradley’s fiancee, is on board. She’s continued searching even after everyone else has stopped. It’s just her and a boat captain, so Linda shows them a “short cut” over the mountain. Zuri falls, but we don’t see exactly what happens to the two newcomers. Linda returns to their camp alone.

That night, Zuri washes up on shore, still alive, and Linda freaks out. Zuri’s not real, just a nightmare. In the morning, Bradley finds Zuri buried on the beach, her huge diamond ring still showing.

When confronted, Linda says she slipped; it was an accident. He’s not buying that and chases her into the jungle with the stolen knife. They fight, and it’s not a play fight; there’s lots of biting and hair-pulling. He pokes her in the eye, and she swallows the engagement ring.

Bradley runs to the part of the island where Linda told him to never go. Turns out, there’s a huge house over there. Linda’s there, and she explains how she already got rid of all the knives except for her. She’s watching him on the security cameras. She explains how she’s been coming to the house for quite some time. We get a flashback to what happened with Zuri.

Bradley begs for his life when she comes in with a shotgun. “I’ve changed!” he begs. He promises to live here on the island with her forever. He’s lying, of course, and they fight some more. Linda plays golf with Bradley’s head.

We cut to Linda, now being interviewed about her ordeal in the plane crash a year ago. They’re making a movie about her ordeal, and she’s famous now.

Brian’s Commentary

A CEO of a major corporation’s airplane crashes in the ocean within sight of an island, and there wasn’t any effort to search? They couldn’t have been that far off course.

For a long time, it looked like they would be rescued, Bradley would recognize Linda’s competence, and give her the promotion. That’s not the way it went at all. It eventually went “full Misery.”

Kevin’s Commentary

This reminded me a bit of “Castaway” meets “Misery.” Trivia also mentions similarities to “Triangle of Sadness,” which I have not seen.

It was well done as it builds, and we get to see how far Linda would go.

There was much more to it than I expected, and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It was great.