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What it's about:
Miranda is a dedicated nurse, an exquisite cake maker and an impeccable friend. But when she agrees to a blind date and the wrong man comes to her door… her perfect world is shattered by a brutal assault. Even after her attacker, William, is convicted and locked away for the crime, Miranda can’t overcome the fear and trauma enough to put her orderly life back together. Desperate for closure, she reaches out to William first through letters, then prison visits and slowly builds a relationship with him. But when William is paroled and comes looking for her, Miranda seizes the opportunity to exact revenge.
What we thought:
There are some movies whose trailers are better than the actual movie; Return to Sender is one of them.
Miranda (Rosamund Pike) is a highly strung control freak, a germaphobe, a meticulous cake maker and she’s not really good with people. She’s a nurse on the verge of a big career move and she’s also buying a new house.
But she’s not very street smart - she mistakes William Finn (Shiloh Fernandez) for her blind date, set up by a friend. He brutally beats and rapes her in her own house. William is caught and convicted and sentenced.
Miranda’s life falls apart she loses the new house, the job and has developed a hand tremor which makes icing cake hard.
Instead of going the conventional route to help her deal with the trauma she stars writing letters to William. After gaining his “trust” she starts visiting him in prison and a strange and somewhat creepy “relationship” develops.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that Miranda is hatching a revenge plan.
It’s really hard to like Miranda as a character, while you might empathise with her situation she remains a cold character. We are never really given the opportunity to really know the character.
Rosamund Pike’s performance is eerily reminiscent to her Oscar nominated role in Gone Girl. What is quiet interesting is that she did this movie before the latter.
And while she did try very hard the script let her down. After an elaborate build up the film falls flat and has a rushed conclusion. There’s no follow through to the plot. We’ve seen Pike at her best this is merely just a shadow performance.
You can skip this wannabe thriller, there’s no thrill to be found here.
