Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil was one of the highlights of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. This was a brutal and well-crafted work that made something palpably frightening out of experiencing “the kindness of strangers”. As is Hollywood’s modus operandi, an English language remake was quickly greenlit. James Watkins (director of the excellent 2008 thriller, Eden Lake) is at the helm, hoping to bring his Speak No Evil to a wide audience while doing justice to Tafdrup’s just two-year-old original.  

There was a time when studios (and audiences) didn’t fear subtitles. Up until the mid-2000s, if a particular foreign film would receive critical acclaim, an American studio would purchase the rights for distribution in the United States. There would be a big promotional effort to sell said film to English-speaking audiences and, many times, this would result in a foreign picture achieving great success in the States. Films such as Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring, Life is Beautiful, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (among others) are popular examples of how American audiences used to embrace films in another language. Hollywood no longer desires to distribute interesting foreign films that were critical and commercial successes overseas. Today, the money is used, not to purchase the rights for distribution, but to retool and completely redo in English.

While remaking an already respected foreign picture has worked a few times (Scorsese’s The Departed, Nolan’s Insomnia, Nichols’ The Birdcage), this type of cinematic task is usually a fool’s errand. While Watkins’ updated version isn’t a bad film and holds some terrific performances, it becomes an exercise that is rendered unnecessary coming so closely off the heels of the effective 2022 original.

Watkins drains the story of the unrelenting cruelty towards one’s fellow man that drove the shock and fueled the intensity of Tafdrup’s piece. After a good start, the new Speak No Evil flips the script and proceeds to spiral into a standard and all-too-safe crowd-pleaser, albeit, a fairly entertaining one. 

Americans Ben and Louise Dalton (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) are on holiday in Italy with their young daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler). While sight-seeing, the family meets Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), another married couple traveling with their developmentally challenged son, Ant (Dan Hough). The couples hit it off, although Paddy’s brazenness is the polar opposite of Ben’s quiet and unassuming demeanor; the former’s masculine demeanor represents the kind of man Ben wishes he could be. 

Back home in London, the couple get an invitation to weekend at Paddy and Ciara’s farm in the British countryside. They accept, even though it doesn’t feel right, as the two couples just met.

Upon arrival, nothing feels right. Paddy has no filter and too-often resorts to inappropriate conversations. Before they set their luggage down, Ben and Louise are made to feel quite uncomfortable. Disrespect seems to be the order of the day, as the hosts seem to disregard social graces in favor of testing their guests’ limits. Any rational person would remove themselves from the situation. Ben and Louise are too wrapped up in a personal matter that has driven a wedge between them to see the slow madness and eventual danger that is unspooling before them. As young Ant does his best to warn the family, his actions are written off as behavioral issues, although he seems to be getting through to Agnes.

Once Paddy and Ciara’s true and oh-so-cruel intentions are revealed, the final act chucks out the breathtaking gut-punch of Christian and Mads Tufdrups’ original screenplay and goes for popcorn thrills. While director Watkins achieves a couple effective moments of tension, the changes have evaporated any real mystery. The macabre moral puzzle becomes a thrill ride. 

While Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis are great as the unwitting couple, it is James McAvoy who savors every maniacal morsel of his character. Beefed up, the actor devours the role, turning the already dangerous existence of toxic male dominance into something deadly. McAvoy is a great fun to watch and gives the picture its fire. He makes the screenplay’s clumsy commentaries on America’s gun culture and over-reliance on prescription meds go down easier. James McAvoy is an actor who couldn’t give a bad performance if he tried and continues that streak with his vicious and riveting work as Paddy.

Where Watkins’ update works is in the performances, the slow-build first half (almost a scene by scene copy of the 2022 version), and its focus on how far one will let something go in the hope of avoiding conflict. While both versions suffer from spurts of unbelievable actions from their characters, this one really stretches credibility as the film goes on. Some of the changes are frustrating, as certain characters just wouldn’t be so blind to their dangerous surroundings. In a few scenes, nervous chuckles are followed by unintended laughs at the stupidity of goofy decisions. Script deficits such as these completely remove the intended tension. When it comes to the finale, the director lets his audience down with a dreadfully pedestrian and unsatisfactory denouement that is an insult to the deeply shocking ending found in the 2022 film. This was most likely changed to appease modern moviegoers’ skittish sensibilities regarding violence and bleak conclusions. 

See No Evil is a good film for a while, but eventually sells its soul for a copout finish that will certainly have audiences cheering, but one that removes the venom from the story’s lethal bite. 

Speak No Evil

Written by James Watkins (Based on an original screenplay by Christian & Mads Tafdrup)

Directed by James Watkins

Starring James McAvoy, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, Dan Hough

R, 110 Minutes, Universal Pictures, Blumehouse Productions