I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I think they hit this early enough, and in the trailer somewhat, that it isn't a spoiler. Like at the beginning they go through a litany of things to show you that she is an avid outdoors person, showing her entire collection of books, pictures, survival gear, all kinds of stuff. Like they REALLY want you to know she knows her **** when it comes to survival. Then to drive the point home again on the plane. Felt heavy-handed to me. Some foreshadowing is fine. Giving you a list you can check off that yep, she has all the books. Yep, pictures of her adventures, yep, check, check, check. To me it just felt heavy-handed, that was all. But then again, this is becoming a trend where they feel the need to spell everything out rather than let you gather things from their actions, or learn from what they actually do in the movie, or just imagine how or why this person knows what they know from subtle clues. Even my wife, who isn't as aware of such things as I tend to be, leaned over during the movie and said sarcastically "do you think they want us to know she is the survivalist?" and then she got my attention and rolled her eyes at the scene on the plane reinforcing this.
As an example, a few years ago I recommended Blade Runner to a bunch of younger kids, my youngest daughter's age and younger, to see what a gritty film noir scifi asthetic can be like from the 70's and 80's. Most of them came back with so many questions, it was like they didn't watch the movie at all. But Blade Runner leaves a lot for the viewer to imagine, even while it has a bit heavier voice over than some other movies, which by the way was reportedly required by the studio because they felt he was leaving a little too much to the imagination. But it is purposely so and is a big part of the central plot of the show to leave questions unanswered, leave you guessing, make you imagine why and make up your own mind about it. But these kids struggled with it more than I expected, and I watched it first when I was like 13, and I was just sucked in and loved the fact that things were left unanswered. I watched a video about this trend lately as well, so maybe it was also in my mind, but now I see it all over the place. Checklists so you don't have any unanswered questions. But yeah when my wife is commenting on it, then it hits me as particularly heavy-handed, as she is always the one asking "where did she get that thing from" and I'm like "I have no idea, why does it matter where her pot-holders came from" or whatever, she just wants to know, and it bugs her to leave gaps in the a story. So when they are spelling things out a bit too much for her, I take notice. Again, this might just be me, but I feel like this is something that is happening more and more in film as phones erode our attention spans, and some film-makers have actually been commenting on it lately.
So for Send Help, it didn't ruin the movie or anything, I am sure just as many people appreciated them making things abundantly clear, but it was just one thing I tend to notice so it is a minor distraction for me.
