Speak No Evil is a remake of the 2022 Danish language picture but switches action from Denmark; substituting the location to the English West Country for an unnerving, tense experience. It captures your worst fear of meeting other tourists from your country who appear to be a bit over-friendly abroad, and director James Watkins has a way of escalating that to terrifying proportions. It’s dark, suitably mysterious from the opening; and by the time that doomed American couple Louise and Ben meet James McAvoy’s macho traditionalist classic Brit abroad Paddy, you get a sense of unease that McAvoy completely sells. You’re never sure whether or not he’s a villain or a good guy with a bit of an edge to him even late into the film until the penny drops, and Speak No Evil masterfully executes that tension and dilemma that Louise and Ben have – how much is too much for them? For Louise; it’s instant – she wants out, Mackenzie Davis is brilliant at capturing this fear that the mother has for her daughter, Agnes, played by Alix West Lefler, but Scoot McNairy’s Ben is swept under the charm of the crazy, something not quite there-ness of Paddy, who encourages him to express his inner masculinity as secrets start to come out between Louise and Ben’s marriage.
It’s awkward, it’s different. Both Ben and Paddy strike up a bond and the commentary on masculinity is explored in multiple facets, through how Paddy adopts and utilises several of the alt-right talking points. His partner is young too, and there’s an air of awkward need to control that Paddy exerts from the get go, claiming that he forgot Louise is a vegetarian and slaughtering one of their best farm animals for them to eat as the guests of honour.
It’s cruel, it’s heartless – and lets you in for the world that Ben, Agnes and Louise have just walked into. There’s a lot of Sam Peckinpah in the sense of grit and odd – the Cerne Abbas naked giant hill figure prepares you for just how alien the west country is to Americans (just, one quibble, how the Cerne Abbas is 1 hour away from a motorway which they see it from), and the locals’ hostility to outsiders is punctuated here from the off. There’s also comments and observations on how Americans don’t get British culture – chips vs. fries, etc, and 911 vs 999, and how important it is to get that right – the difference is life-death defying here; as Speak No Evil quickly and sharply drifts into Straw Dogs territory, recreating the final act almost scene for scene in a tense, scary and unhinged conclusion that although lends itself to a more hopeful and optimistic ending than perhaps, the source material, allows a moment of satisfaction that is still deeply trauma inducing – thanks in no small part due to the brilliance of Dan Hough’s Ant – who is instantly sympathetic and instantly great at portraying a wordless role full of pent-up rage and anger, mistreated to the core, shellshocked and a broken child who has endured more hell than just about anyone.
Speak No Evil’s greatest strength is that you know more about its antagonist than the characters do, on top of an excellent performance by James McAvoy. You’re waiting for the penny to drop and when it falls it cascades down the hill. It plays off not just Americans’ sense that there’s something odd, different about the British, but there’s also something odd, different about those who have lived in the West Country – the rural isolation, that makes it unnerving even for those who grew up there like myself. Spectacular scenery abound, picturesque and appropriately remote – it’s easy to get lost, and the dark wilderness creeps in on the moors often. Dartmoor in particular has produced a wealth of remote literature. It’s also refreshing to get something that’s obviously a Devon work, as opposed to something that takes place in the more well-known Cornwall – Mark Jenkin spearheaded the Cornish renaissance superbly with Bait and Enys Men, and hopefully Speak No Evil will do the same with Devon, previously relegated to bit-parts in beach invasion scenes in World War Two movies and Edge of Tomorrow.
It’s easy to fall under the spell of Speak No Evil and its devil may care, classic Brits abroad pairing of Paddy and Ciara. But look closer beneath the shadows and there’s a turn of suspense, intrigue and unease at play that makes this film one of the most compulsive and propulsive movies of the year so far – irresistible. It rests on the shoulders of McAvoy able to make Paddy believable as a good character potentially somewhere inside his macho bravado, and he steps up to the challenge with a likeable ease.
