‘Speak No Evil (2024)’ Review: An Unnecessary Remake Anchored by a Thrilling James McAvoy
James Watkins repurposes Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil for an American audience. Elevated by a strong turn from James McAvoy, the movie sadly makes unfortunate changes to its ending that sink the film’s core terrifying message.
Christian Tafdrup’s Danish horror film Speak No Evil is remade for an American audience only two years after its Shudder premiere. This is part of an insistent trend for Hollywood to remake any popular international film in the English language because the insecure moviegoing public is deathly afraid of reading subtitles. The horror! Of course, anyone who watches the original Speak No Evil will realize that this decision to adapt the movie for Americans is terribly baffling since 95% of that film is spoken in English!
And the scariest aspect of Tafdrup’s film wasn’t its bleak, audaciously grim conclusion, which no producer in the Hollywood studio system would ever greenlight, but the barrier it creates with the Danish and Dutch languages. Whenever Patrick (Fedja van Huêt) and Karin (Karina Smulders) would speak in Dutch to each other, Tafrdrup does not translate it to the audience via subtitles. The Danish is, as it reveals crucial information all of us must know, but the Dutch is never revealed. When Karin secretly speaks to Agnes (Liva Forsberg) in Dutch, the daughter of the Danish couple Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sisdel Siem Koch), the mother has a disconcerting glare inside of her. She’s not only uncomfortable at the sight of Karin speaking to her daughter and telling her what to do but also doing so in a language she does not understand.
Of course, this is all removed with James Watkins’ fully English-language remake, which retreads most of the sequences from Tafrdup’s film without the language barrier or its terrifying ending that made its patient, deliberately slow pace worthwhile. It does tell the same story of a couple meeting another seemingly friendly family while on vacation in Italy, leading to Paddy (James McAvoy) inviting husband and wife Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis), alongside their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) to their home. But Watkins never justifies why he’s readapting Tafdrup’s movie, other than fully making it in English.
Something is deeply wrong with Paddy and wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), but Ben and Louise are too afraid to say anything to vex the couple. We then get a succession of sequences that are taken straight from the original film but contain none of the dramatic power or nuance sustained by Patrick and Karin, who subtly manipulate the couple into staying, as Louise desperately wants to leave. McAvoy and Franciosi’s portrayals of both Paddy and Ciara are always in-your-face, comedically making the couple as uncomfortable as possible during their stay. This does work because the most frightening aspect of the two occurs when no one ever knows if the two are joking or not.
Their faces are always incredibly serious, bringing more mystery into who they actively are than the façades they created in Italy to swindle both Ben and Louise. In that regard, McAvoy more than succeeds in giving Paddy an interesting arc, repurposing Patrick as if he were one of Kevin Wendell Crumb’s personalities from M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. Delving more into physical comedy, McAvoy’s portrayal of the main antagonist constantly shifts into unexpected – and often gut-bustlingly hilarious – territory.
Unsurprisingly, it works in the movie’s favor. McAvoy is such a skillful presence that, even retreading scenes from the original, he adds a fresher – and more exciting – flavor into Watkins’ text that ultimately makes the trip to the cinema worthwhile. You truly never know what he will do because he continuously spices up familiar scenes with a different, more pertinent line of dialogue or an entirely new situation within the setting we know from the original film. For example, instead of fully breaking into dance and passionately kissing after a nice dinner at a townhouse, Paddy and Ciara pretend to have oral sex in front of Ben and Louise. It’s a slight shift, but far scarier and way more disconcerting than the 2022 original’s scene in a similar location.
Some changes like these give a bit of life into an otherwise dull reinterpretation of Tafdrup’s movie, but the core clinical aesthetic of the original remains the same. Cinematographer Tim Maurice-Jones does a terrific job recreating the consuming atmosphere of the Danish movie and immediately envelops us in its clean lens that slowly progresses into somber territory as we begin to learn more about the couple. It’s unfortunate that if someone saw the original, everything is seen coming a mile away. We know what will unfold and who Paddy, Ciara, and their son Ant (Dan Hough) truly are. For those who have not seen it, the reveal may come as a shock to the system. Watkins ensures their motivations remain unchanged from this film to the original, which seems to respect it in that regard.
One of the most emotionally powerful scenes of Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil occurs near its end, as Bjørn asks Patrick: “Why are you doing this to us?” He replies: “Because you let me.” The fact that there is no reason other than random luck is horrifying in and of itself, and even more so when their story ends in pure tragedy. Watkins keeps this line in the remake, as Paddy reveals his true intentions to the family, but entirely rehauls the ending for a more crowd-pleasing affair. The violence is indeed cathartic, and its climax contains plenty of claustrophobic, often anxiety-inducing moments. But such a conclusion completely dilutes the original’s dramatic impact and the scary realization that it's only randomness that they’re here and the two cannot do anything about their now horrible fate.
No Hollywood producer has the guts to end their movie like this and truly jolt the audience in a way that will make them unable to sleep at night. That’s why Watkins goes full Joseph Zito (a nifty primer referencing the filmmaker’s oeuvre that occurs near the top of the film) and gives the protagonists the ultimate satisfaction they did not get in the original film. Yes, it’s fun, and it’s certainly great to witness moments of total release like these with a rowdy crowd clapping at every satisfyingly bloody moment. But this “happy ending” ultimately costs not only the point of Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil but the slow tension Watkins was effectively portraying by staying true to the original as possible…until this cardinal deviation, rendering this remake entirely devoid of meaning.