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Remake defuses its shocking inspiration

You've heard of cringe comedy, but what about cringe horror? That might be the best description the original Speak no evila harrowingly uncomfortable Danish thriller that hit theaters in 2022 and brought Shudder back and promptly did what The Great White Shark for the beach. Written and directed by Christian Tafdrup, the film is about a smiling couple who invite the family they meet on holiday to their house in the Dutch countryside, then test how much their guests will tolerate for fear of confrontation or rudeness. Its genius was in how it toeeded the line between tension and awkward social discomfort. Although Tafdrup was clearly exploiting specific European cultural differences, his scenario was one of universal fear; one could imagine it working anywhere where people feel bound by rules of etiquette or their own permissive nature.

As if to test this theory, there is now a remake from an American studio. Never mind that the original was already mostly in English, that it can be easily streamed, and that it came out just two years ago: any barrier to entry for a multiplex audience has been removed. New writer-director James Watkins, who made the entertaining horror film Hammer, set in the dark, The Woman in Blackhas changed names, nationalities and some plot details. For the most part, however, he has carefully preserved the unsettling architecture of Tafdrup's film. Sometimes it's almost the same film, scene for scene. Until it's not.

The set-up is basically the same, but this time the guests are Americans who have just moved to London and are going through a difficult time. Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben (Scoot McNairy) put aside their reservations about spending a whole weekend with people they've just met and accept an invitation to a trip to the English countryside. They bring their 12-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler). Their hosts are Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi from “The Nightingale”), a free-spirited, hot-blooded couple who disarm their new American friends with their carpe diem attitude. The two have a child of their own, Ant (Dan Hough), who doesn't speak much due to a disease that has left his tongue too short.

Right from the start of the weekend, Paddy and Ciara start pushing buttons – urging vegetarian Louise to eat the goose they cooked, ditching Ben with a big check, and raising Agnes in front of her parents. Speak No Evil remains a thriller about mounting microaggressions, finding its darkest comedy in the foibles of a vacation gone interpersonally wrong. Are these politely accommodating city folk in danger, or are they just having a really bad time in the boonies? Watkins doesn't let us get that question out of our minds, just as Tafdrup did.

The casting is certainly inspired. Obviously, Speak No Evil relies heavily on McAvoy, now a pro at gives us insights into a fragmented mind. In a way, it does a more deliberate variation on the psychological gear shifts of Split, this time about a character with a little more control over his sense of self: the animal in him keeps peeking out from behind his attractively constructed facade of deceptive, down-to-earth “authenticity.” Franciosi is creepy in a different register, switching her sincerity on and off like a valve. And Davis and McNairy’s shared history is cleverly used, the former Stop and catch fire Co-stars act out a believable marital crisis behind the scenes of their ongoing marathon of social anxieties.

For a long time, the film succeeds in getting under your skin almost as well as its predecessor: those unfamiliar with this cruelly wince-inducing story won't mind how closely it mimics what it reimagines. Watkins's cleverest deviation lies in the particular manipulation tactics employed by his hosts from hell. “They're a bit more… unvarnished,” Ben justifies the rudeness – a suggestion that it's fear of cultural or class condescension that keeps his family trapped in a place they'd so much like to leave. Louise and Ben are the prototypes of guilty liberals, and Paddy and Ciara exploit this ruthlessly; when the guests come agonizingly close to making a run for it, a sad story about Ciara's past in the care system stops them. Meanwhile, any discomfort about leaving the children with a stranger's babysitter is neutralized by Paddy's claim that he is a Syrian refugee fleeing civil unrest.

No one could accuse this “Speak No Evil” of being an anticlimax. But one could accuse it of being a coward.

The final act is where Speak No Evil really becomes its own film, but not necessarily for the better. The climax delivers the conventional suspense and intense denouement that has been withheld until then – the moment when real danger finally breaks through the dramatic tension Watkins has built up when the thriller lurking in the shadows emerges. The chaos is well orchestrated and, in the end, reminiscent of a much older, already re-shot culture shock horror film set in the British country. No one could accuse this “Speak No Evil” of being an anticlimax.

But one could accuse him of being a wimp. It is by no means the first time that a tough European film has been nervously adapted into Hollywood. One could think of the reviled remake of The Vanishingin which director George Sluizer was complicit in the complete defusing of his the absolute low point of a thrillerOr maybe from Downhillwhich turned a mercilessly astute portrait of fragile masculinity by Ruben Östlund – Tafdrup's soulmate in Nordic malaise – into a sitcom about a Will Ferrell dad learning to stand up for his family. The original Speak No Evil was a parable about disastrous consent that put its criticism into nightmarish action, giving a truly disturbing consequence to the unwillingness to stand up for oneself. It savagely sliced ​​into the egos of people who want to please everyone. This new Speak No Evil finally aims for grateful roars. The premise has been ported overseas, but its true power has been lost in translation.

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