Return To Sender Wasn't That Great

– August 30, 2023

I watched Return To Sender yesterday, and for anyone who hasn’t seen it, this movie dropped in 2015. It stars Rosamund Pike, Nick Nolte, and Shiloh Fernandez. Pike plays a nurse with some serious control quirks—maybe OCD, maybe germ issues, the movie never commits—but aside from that, she’s presented as a normal, put-together woman living a normal, put-together life.

She’s close with her dad (Nick Nolte), she’s friendly with her coworkers, and one of them is so worried about her non-existent love life that she sets Pike up on a blind date with some guy named Kevin. We don’t learn much about Kevin except that this hookup has apparently been on the to-do list for a while.

The film takes its sweet time showing us Pike’s quiet little routine… until date night. She’s on the couch painting her toenails when she sees someone outside. She opens the door, tells “Kevin” he’s early, and mentions how weird it is that he didn’t knock. He smooth-talks his way around it, she buys it, and she goes to finish getting dressed.

When she comes back, things shift fast. The vibe gets awkward, she asks him to leave, and as “Kevin” reaches the door, he locks it. Then he violently rapes her and runs off. No build-up, no subtlety—just straight into the brutality.

Later the real Kevin shows up, finds Pike beaten in the kitchen, and calls the cops. And that’s it—Kevin exits the movie like he was never meant to matter anyway. Pike eventually recognizes her attacker: William, a busboy from a restaurant she and her father frequent.

He’s arrested. She survives. But she develops a tremor in her right hand and the film dives into her PTSD—panic, anger, aggression, emotional withdrawal. In one scene, she randomly insults a store clerk. In another, she destroys the game Operation out of pure frustration. Hours later, lying on the floor, she gets an idea… and that’s when the movie completely loses me.

She starts writing letters. We don’t know to who at first, but when they get returned to her marked Return to Sender, it clicks—she’s writing to William. Her rapist. And for some reason the movie expects me to roll with that.

It’s easily the most cringe-inducing decision in the whole film. I don’t know why anyone in the writing room thought this was a believable direction, but fine. I kept watching.

After months of sending letters, William finally agrees to see her. Their first prison visit is awkward and tense, but then she asks, “How’s the food in here?” and suddenly it’s giving weird subtle-flirty energy. From there, she keeps visiting him, and this creepy pseudo-relationship forms. Eventually, he gets paroled for “good behavior.” Sure.

Once he’s out, he starts visiting her house to help fix things. She doesn’t let him inside, but he’s out there painting, patching, repairing—all part of her mission to “restore” her house because she can’t sell it after the assault. Her father sees William buying familiar paint and realizes what’s going on. He confronts Pike, she tells him the truth, and he storms out saying he doesn’t recognize her anymore.

William overhears and skips their next meet-up. When she calls him, she basically taunts him for being scared of a 70-year-old man. The next day he shows up, and the vibe between them is… weirdly sensual. Like the movie is teasing the most uncomfortable romance subplot imaginable.

Just as things peak, William suddenly feels sick and asks to lie down inside. She hesitates, then lets him in. Fade to black. A loud thud. And I’ll stop there.

If you’re curious, watch it—or just Google it, because my opinion isn’t changing.

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Why It Didn’t Work

This movie isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely not good. I was fully on board with the premise until the letters and prison-visiting started. I can’t speak for any woman’s trauma, but I have a hard time believing many assault survivors decide to cultivate a relationship with the man who raped them. That alone pulled me out of the story.

Then there's Pike’s character: extremely detail-oriented, borderline OCD, won’t touch a public pen—but she invites a blind date to her house? A stranger? With her address? Make it make sense.

They also mention her mother’s death as if it’s a huge shaping force in her life, but the movie never explores it. It’s treated like meaningful backstory without giving us… any backstory.

Overall, the acting is solid—Rosamund Pike rarely disappoints—but the writing and direction are messy, inconsistent, and awkward in all the wrong ways. It has moments worth a single watch, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless they’re a diehard Pike fan or they just need something playing in the background.