An American family living in London are pushed to their limits while on an idyllic getaway in the British countryside in Speak No Evil, opening in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. This remake of the 2022 Danish horror movie of the same name is nowhere near as upsetting as the original, but works like gangbusters on much different terms as a tense thriller in the vein of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs.
Produced by Blumhouse, 2024’s Speak No Evil was written and directed by James Watkins, who lifts the setup and many narrative elements directly from the earlier film before taking things into an entirely different direction during its intense climax. The result resembles Watkins’s suspenseful 2008 film Eden Lake more than the Danish movie, and succeeds more and more as it translates the original story into a tense and believable (if Hollywood-style) thriller.
This Speak No Evil stars Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis as Ben and Louise Dalton, an American couple on vacation in Tuscany with young daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler). They strike up a friendship with the Fields, a British family that includes charmingly uncouth father and former doctor Patrick (James McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and young Ant (Dan Hough), who doesn’t speak due to what Patrick terms “communication issues.”
It is immediately apparent to everyone, and not only audiences who have seen the earlier film, that something is off here; Patrick is uncomfortably forward in his actions, in a way that feels invasive of the Dalton family’s personal space. But under the cloak of being polite, Ben and Louise allow him to ingratiate himself among their family, and ultimately accept an invite to the Fields’ family farm after getting back to London.
It’s at the Fields’ cottage in Devon that the tensions slowly begin to escalate; Patrick forces a slice of goose on vegetarian Louise, the children are left with an unannounced Serbian babysitter, the Field’s get drunk and mimic sexual acts. But there’s always an explanation, be it general ignorance or an intentional ruse, and the Daltons keep going along with everything under the guise of formal politeness until they’ve gone too far, and there’s no going back.
2022’s Speak No Evil, which paired a Danish and Dutch couple compared to the remake’s American and British, masterfully escalated the tension between the two families to uncomfortable dimensions; the societal civility between the couples is inherently relatable, and ramped up to uncomfortable levels of cringe. The movie goes to some especially dark places that recall Michael Haneke‘s Funny Games, but we can imagine another version minus the explicit horror, in which the couples’ awkward friendship continues past the end credits.
2024’s Speak No Evil, meanwhile, is not quite as successful at depicting the early tension between the couples. We know something is up here from the very beginning, because of McAvoy’s deliciously menacing performance that gets under our skin right from the early scenes in Tuscany, because of how writer-director Watkins drops not-so-subtle clues about where his story is headed, and perhaps because we’ve seen the original film and know exactly what’s in store here.
But this Speak No Evil delivers some real surprise during its second half as it takes the original story into an entirely different direction. It becomes exactly the kind of Hollywood thriller that the original film satirizes, but when the thriller elements are so expertly crafted it’s hard to complain; the home invasion final act of the movie is nail-bitingly tense, and supremely satisfying in direct contrast to the earlier movie.
Watkins’ Speak No Evil is a rare gem among remakes, one that offers more surprises to viewers of the original movie than those who are coming in fresh. It makes for an especially interesting comparison to Haneke’s original Funny Games and his Funny Games U.S. remake, becoming exactly the kind of remake that Haneke refused to deliver. Some may dismiss this Speak No Evil outright because of that, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here, wrapped up in a tightly-wound thriller that delivers on entirely different terms than the original.
2 Responses
it was mid, nowehere near the original. have you see the original?
As a big fan of the original I too was surprised at how good this was. Rare chance of an English remake matching the original