- Director: James Watkins
- Writer: James Watkins, Christian Tafdrup, Madsen Tafdrup
- Stars: James McAvoy, Aisling Franciosi, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis
REVIEW
Few things are more anxiety inducing than going to see a remake of a horror movie: especially if it’s a film that you hold in high regard. The horror genre loves to do a remake, though, and we love to debate about whether or not it was necessary, successful or entertaining. Enter writer/ director James Watkins iteration of Speak No Evil. Based on the 2022 Danish film of the same name, one does have to wonder why a remake was made so quickly, much less why anyone felt that one was needed at all. Let’s tackle this in two parts: we will talk about the 2024 film on it’s own and then look at where the differences between it and the original stack up.
Best known for his film Eden Lake, Watkins is the perfect choice to take on a film about class and unspoken social rules that can prove to be more harmful than helpful. Add James McAvoy (Split) in the role of the über masculine Paddy and it does seem like things are stacking up to be a good, if not great, remake. Paddy, his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their son Ant (Dan Hough) are on vacation in Tuscany when they meet Ben (Scoot McNairy), Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and daughter Agnes (Alex West Lefler). When the two couples hit it off and the two children play together easily, it all leads to Paddy inviting them out to his English countryside estate. Expats living in London and navigating a few stressful life situations, Ben and Louise decide a long weekend getaway will be a good thing.
Unfortunately, it is quickly obvious that these two couples couldn’t be more different, and it would also appear that Paddy and Ciara misrepresented themselves in multiple ways. As small misunderstandings and straight up rude gestures begin to pile up, Louise loses steam with constantly being polite and keeping her mouth shut and she packs her family up to leave without word only to be forced back. In a stunning moment of cruel manipulation, Ciara and Paddy convince the three to stay, and things just get darker from here. Ultimately, what plays out is a commentary on how social niceties can be deadly, toxic masculinity is just as detrimental as a man who seemingly follows his wife’s lead and the only way anyone can survive a horror film is with a strong Final Girl.
McAvoy is reliably wonderful and is clearly having a blast inhabiting a hulking, abusive, yet charming monster. Franciosi (absolutely stunning in The Nightingale) is the perfect companion who is devilishly sweet while also making the viewer question if she is also a victim and Hough will break your heart as you watch him try to tell Agnes what really goes on in his home. Much like the original film, nothing is as it seems in this quiet country home, and soon, the guests will be fighting for their lives. In Watkins film, Agnes and Louise, although both wound tight, will prove to be the ones who lead this fight, and the third act is a fun battle of wills with a satisfying ending. Overall, it’s a satisfactory psychological thriller that excels mostly because of McAvoy, however, it’s truly unfortunate that Watkins didn’t take advantage of the horror of human nature the way he did in Eden Lake.
Everything from here on will be spoilerific in an effort really discuss the film.
The original Speak No Evil is a gut punch of cinema that leaves you feeling hollow for days and really makes you think about the overbearing need for politeness in today’s society. At what point is it acceptable to advocate for yourself and your family at the expense of someone else’s feelings? And why do we put more value on a stranger’s feelings than our own? Writer/director Christian Tafdrup puts cultural norms on blast while the viewer is forced to watch a nice family continually bite their tongue until, well, they no longer have one. It’s the same story of two families making friends while on vacation and the more uptight and forward thinking family visits the less polished and more aggressive family only to realize that their hosts are not at all who they pretend to be. It was, indeed, an interesting move to pit an English and American family against one another in the remake because they each play against stereotype. While most people expect the English to be impossibly polite and Americans to be loud and brash, the roles are reversed and that’s what helps cause some of the initial confusion and hesitation to react on Ben and Louise’s part. The remake also gives Ant a lot of courage and cleverness that is absent in the original. This should be a positive update, but this is where the Americanization of the remake is not only obvious but takes away from the point of the film. Unfortunately for our Danish characters, there is no happy ending because no one ever advocates for themselves and the two evil leads are allowed to continue killing husbands and wives while kidnapping their children to use as bait to ensnare another couple on a future vacation. When the inevitable question of, “Why are you doing this?” is uttered, it is met with a truly chilling answer – “Because you let me.” One of the bleakest and meanest movie endings in years, Speak No Evil is a gripping, intelligent look at masculinity and the ways it is weaponized in both men and women and polite society. In Watkins film, they hint at Ben being a “less than” man in the traditional sense, but they also blame his wife for it: his wife who will end up saving everyone because Bitches Get Shit Done. From Ben having a meltdown in the middle of a crisis and his wife being the one to get him and everyone else out of the situation to a wild fox coming back to haunt him about his less than manly life choices, it’s not only perplexing why these bits were included in the remake, but they seem to take glee in taking the piss out of Ben. Sure, we could hail this as celebrating women and their ability to always be the Final Girl, but at what point is a woman’s mental load ever going to be carried by the man in her life? The original film left no one unscathed. Everyone was culpable and fallible. The remake thinks it’s commenting on modern issues, but ultimately, it all boils down to Paddy being a monster who has made everyone his victim, and only Louise can get them out of it. This isn’t just a run of the mill blueprint for any horror movie, but it takes the easy way out by making everything nice and putting a happy ending on it and this is always the biggest issue with American remakes: we just can’t sit with discomfort or think about anything disturbing for longer than a minute. We need everything to end well and for there to be a good guy and a bad guy, but that simply isn’t how life works and that’s what is so endlessly comforting and fascinating about the horror genre: the myriad ways that people unpack trauma, grief and fear through cinema.
Speak No Evil (2022) is a masterclass in this. Speak No Evil (2024) is a solid film that mostly succeeds because James McAvoy is a fucking superstar and never afraid to play an ugly character. I suppose it’s nice to have a choice when you settle into your viewing for the evening. Something thought provoking or something that does it’s job? Both have their rightful place, but I simply expected more from the pedigree behind the film.
Speak No Evil is in cinemas now.
Lisa Fremont
Hello, old friends. I love this review, and my response will be a critique of both films and less on the criticism of them.
For the 2022 version, I would agree that there are subtleties that make the awkward moments that much more magnified. You never know what to expect. Every interaction is nuanced and laced with cringe. Motives are elusive and at the same time, you can’t figure out the scheme and who to root for. Nothing is, in other words, black or white.
The 2024 version relies more on backstory and manipulation by the antagonist couple, which is a much easier way to coax the audience into allowing us to buy into the scheme and await for what’s next. It’s a formula. The changing of the last act is rooted in what we want in American culture: revenge, carnage, fighting for what’s yours and morally correct.
I’ve been grappling with the social commentary of the original, and dare I say: I don’t get it. Or at the very least, I don’t get its purpose and certainly didn’t take in its supposed profound meaning. I say that with full recognition that my proclivities are in line with the American version that I hungered for: revenge, carnage, etc. I was baffled by the end of the Danish version, watching our gullible and dejected couple succumb to rocks in a quarry. I was somewhere between disbelief and LOL. A resounding “really?” stuck with me for days, and not in a thoughtful “Funny Games” way where I understood the frustration I felt was Heneke’s way of moving me out of my cinematic comfort zone.
In Speak No Evil, I don’t care that the bad guys win. I welcome that, but I didn’t understand the failures of the good guys. If the commentary is about gender roles, in my view, this commentary is as weak as our protagonists. And if that’s the point, then I can’t in good faith say the 2022 version is better or worse. It’s lions and lambs. There’s no in between. It’s black and white in its own way: Good versus evil. Victim and victimizer.
To say the 2024 version is better is also overselling. Yes, McAvoy is great, but as I noted before, the film hits the formula well and is absent of any commentary whatsoever.
So I wonder then if audiences should take away anything from either movie as anything other than an exercise in the cruelty of people for the sake of showing what’s possible. I sound silly writing that, because plenty of horror movies could easily be written off as pointless (and ironically that is the point) but I think my main takeaway is that Speak No Evil (both original and remake) are not as important as it makes itself out to be.
Anyway, keep up the good reviews.
Eric