My constant refrain regarding remakes is that I have nothing against them, and I’m only against bad movies. Speak No Evil is the kind of film that tests certain limits for me, as I can’t just say I’ll block out my knowledge of the 2022 Danish horror film and accept this film as its own thing. Obviously, I am judging this film for what it presents, and there is plenty to praise in this effort from Blumhouse to deliver a fresh take on the same story. However, whether or not influence based around my appreciation for the original film is playing a role as its own feature, I couldn’t help but feel like the challenge presented to these filmmakers to take on a movie notable for specific reasons and do something new with it ultimately didn’t pay off. As a result, the film left me wondering what this was all for from an artistic standpoint.
The film focuses on an American family living in London who befriend a charming British family while on vacation in Italy. The vacation friends own an idyllic country estate and invite the Americans to stay with them for a long weekend. As things play out, the charm appears to have another side, as the seemingly nice hosts have various quirks that feel like a sinister undercurrent is ready to be unleashed.
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On the American side, we have Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy as Louise and Ben Dalton. They also have a daughter, the 11-year-old Agnes (Alix West Lefler). They’re a typical family, though things are a bit rocky based on career choices and issues regarding passion. At its best, Speak No Evil sees this side as one coming from privilege, with efforts speaking to masculinity and what lengths people will go to for the sake of appearing polite and attempting to avoid awkward situations. While McNairy fairs well enough, Davis gets the strongest role as a mother who is understandably protective yet pushed into one situation after another, where situations call for her to look past the alarms in her head to avoid upsetting things too much.
With the Brits, we have Paddy, played by James McAvoy, putting in his all, as he tends to do when it comes to his horror film efforts. Paddy also has a wife, Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and son, Ant (Dan Hough), who add what’s needed to the peculiar nature of this family. Still, it is McAvoy’s performance that will garner the most attention. That’s for good reason, as the film, adapted and directed by James Watkins, puts so much effort into the force that is this family patriarch.
McAvoy can lay on the charm, lean into a devilish side, spark debate, act understanding, jump into anger, bounce it all back toward calm, and make it work well enough. I suppose that knowing this is a Blumhouse horror film means his efforts to create obvious tension don’t undercut whatever surprises are in store. At the same time, being this big in a movie that already presents a heightened scenario does hold me back from appreciating the effort more.
Whatever way one responds to these characters, it is worth stating that the first two-thirds of this film are very effective. It knows how to get the audience invested in the situation enough to both have fun with the circumstances at play and be unnerved by the areas that border on creepy. It’s also the sort of film relying on one with perfect hindsight to be frustrated by what characters aren’t thinking of doing in the moment. That’s generally a way of getting around idiotic moments, and movies that are clever enough to build off the “what would you do” component are all the better for it.
It can be tricky to explain precisely why I feel things go off the rails in the film’s final act, but suffice it to say that it all became rather generic to me in a way that reflected poorly on the events preceding what takes place. If there’s an intelligence and upper hand at play for one side, while I’m happy to see troubleshooting lead to a solution, it comes at a threat of losing out on the danger created, which Speak No Evil falls subject to. Plus, while I’m not going to directly state that the only way to honor the original is by sticking with how that film played out beat for beat, it’s hard not to feel as though there was an implied dare taken on when announcing that an American version would be coming, only for the film to step in less satisfying directions.
I can understand that not everyone knows the original compared to a splashy Universal Pictures delivery of a film that’s been aggressively marketed all summer leading up to its release. That said, if the takeaway for most audiences regarding this story amounts to the work going into these performances and this movie’s specific choices, I feel that’s unfortunate. It’s a well-constructed psychological thriller up to a point, sure, but when things become more visceral, no matter what was accomplished in terms of the themes at play and the established character dynamics, there’s little being done to justify why this level of effort needed to be put into making a new version of this story. Sure, there’s joy in McAvoy’s latest twisted horror performance, but I ultimately felt less concerned with speaking no evil and more focused on seeing little purpose.
Speak No Evil opens in theaters on September 13, 2024.
