I missed the original Speak No Evil when it reached our shores in late 2022, despite the laudatory reviews for Christian Tafdrup’s horror film about a Danish family’s encounter with a Dutch family. When I caught up with it recently, I was puzzled by what the American-British remake was going to do with the material. The original works for me as a Holocaust parable, but I figured its downbeat ending wouldn’t fly with an Anglophone audience. Apparently, James Watkins (the filmmaker behind British horror-thrillers like Eden Lake and The Woman in Black, so he’s not afraid of downbeat endings) thought the same thing, because this new version is a fundamentally different movie. It’s an effective potboiler if you’re willing to take it as more of an action thriller.
Like the original, the remake begins in the Tuscan countryside. Ben and Louise Dalton (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) are an American couple raising their 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) in London. On their holiday, they meet Patrick and Ciara Feld (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), whose similarly aged son named Ant (Dan Hough) is mute. The Felds invite the Daltons to visit them at their remote farm in England’s West Country, and it’s there that Ant secretly passes Agnes a note that reads, “Hjælp mig. Det er ikke sikkert her.” Agnes does not read Danish, but if you do, it’s going to set alarm bells ringing in your head.
Those bells may be ringing anyway. McAvoy in particular deploys his charm and sense of humor early on when Paddy tells dirty jokes to drive away annoying Danish tourists who want to talk the Daltons’ ear off about Italian food. He quickly turns sinister, though, as Paddy pressures vegetarian Louise into eating the roast goose that Ciara has so lovingly prepared. He reveals that he’s sponsoring a Syrian refugee (Motaz Malhees) living in the area and then openly jokes about having the man deported. Then the kids try to perform a country dance routine during lunch and Patrick becomes so angry at Ant for getting the dance wrong that he turns red in the face and screams obscenities at the terrified boy, and when the Daltons object to him, he rounds on them and tells them that how he parents his kid is none of their business. This performance gives you the queasy feeling of being in public and seeing a stranger mistreat his friend or the waiter, where you’re not sure whether intervening might make matters worse.
For all the skill McAvoy brings to this monstrous role, I can’t help but find the movie’s treatment of Ben more interesting. He’s presented as a weak man who’s unequal to the situation, and not for nothing does the film cast McNairy, the Dallas native who’s shorter than Davis and has a wobbly jawline. Ben is unemployed because the job he moved to the U.K. for evaporated soon after he relocated his family, and he’s full of suppressed anger at Louise after she sexted a male colleague. Patrick does help him get that out, but when things go south at the farm, Ben tries and fails to set the Felds’ barn on fire (though this turns out to be a good thing) and blows two chances to kill the people who are threatening his wife and daughter. This generates more tension than having Ben be some calm heroic type, and it’s neatly counterpointed by Agnes going from a girl who can’t sleep without her stuffed bunny beside her to faking her first period after it becomes clear that the Felds have no intention of ever letting her parents leave the farm. It’s this innovative take on coming through in a bad predicament that makes Speak No Evil into a flawed but effective piece of entertainment.
Speak No Evil
Starring James McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis. Written and directed by James Watkins, based on Christian and Mads Tafdrup’s screenplay. Rated R.
