Review of Return to Sender (2015) by Maddison B — 06 Mar 2016

For most of the way Return to Sender merges creepy with sexy, building on the idea that a woman could be developing perverse feelings for her sexual attacker. However, the final act quickly begins to fall apart with its clumsy tonal changes and and confusing character revelations.

Return to Sender is a thriller about a small town nurse, Miranda Wells (Rosamund Pike), who reluctantly agrees to being set up on a blind date. Enter William Finn (Shiloh Fernandez), hanging around on the doorstep of Miranda's house, Miranda no doubt believes her blind date has arrived early. For the audience, its clearly obvious that there is no way in hell this is the blind date, as we pick up on his slimy vibes in seconds, for Miranda it takes an extra couple minutes to realise her mistake, resulting in a vicious sexual attack in her kitchen.

Fouad Mikati's thriller is a less then impressive version of Gone Girl. Pike makes this film digestible with her ability to tap into the dark performance of a woman who can seriously hold a mean grudge... (Don't let your pets near this woman and never bring out the game Operation) God forbid! The dramatic build up seems rushed, after William is paroled (in what seems like a ridiculous short amount of time), and invited back over to Miranda's house to tend to the rose bushes...

The final act revealing the all to foreseeable diabolical revenge plan is lost on the audience. With dead dogs and dead mothers, and a botched surgical operation, nothing is ever quite explained. This rape revenge story tries to be something a little more then it is...but really it fails as a drama, it fails as a thriller, it even fails as an exploitation film as we are never shown the wrath of Miranda's experimental surgery!

Don't waste your time, skip this movie and just watch Gone Girl.