Speak No Evil (2024)
Any Bangles fans out there? Get ready to hear “Eternal Flame” in a whole new way.
The Daltons are on vacation in Italy, staying in a hotel with various tourists from various countries. Everyone has been getting to know each other and figuring out their quirks, and all in all they’re pretty clubby. Well, mostly—there are some Danes in the group who can’t stop talking about their cooking classes.
Ben and Louise Dalton meet Paddy and Ciara, a British couple vacationing with their son, and they seem nice at first, although it feels like Paddy tries too hard to win people over. Still, the two couples agree to exchange phone numbers and addresses when they’re back home. The Daltons have moved to London with their daughter, Agnes and Ben is between jobs.
I saw Speak No Evil in a reasonably full theater, well, reasonably full for eleven o’clock AM on a Tuesday, and for the first two-thirds or so people were laughing and having a ball with it. After a bit I started wondering if the movie was really bad or if it wasn’t what the trailer had led us to believe.
In truth, though, the movie is pretty fun to begin with in that it does a good job of burying the lede. Initially, it’s about racing around on Vespas, blasting classic rock and jumping into swimming holes. As time goes on, though, weird things start happening and Paddy and Ciara get uncomfortably neurotic. Well, that, and their son, Ant, who was supposedly born mute, has more to say than his parents let on.
Yep, it gets creepy like in the trailer, only more so. The Daltons keep trying to leave Paddy and Ciara’s farm, but something always stops them or brings them back, and when the stuff hits the fan they have to get really creative.
Speak No Evil’s irony game is on point, as well. It’s funny that Speak No Evil is based on a Danish film of the same title, yet the Danes at the beginning are made fun of and pushed out of the way. Those classic rock songs, particularly “Eternal Flame” take on weird new meanings. The film also does really well at relaying history without giant exposition dumps, plus the mind has a way of filling in blanks. Once we know certain important information about Paddy and Ciara it’s pretty easy, for instance, to look at the cheerful curios all over their house and wonder about their real history.
I’m really trying not to give anything away here, because Speak No Evil is so effective at lulling the viewer into complacency. James McAvoy as Paddy is disarmingly charming until he goes bonkers, and then he’s Mr. Psycho Killer. He even breathes like Darth Vader in one scene.
All I could think about, however, was McAvoy’s adorable Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, inviting Lucy to come have tea with him and then spilling the beans about how he’s supposed to trap any human he meets and turn them over to the White Witch. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
Now, I haven’t seen the original Danish film of Speak No Evil, which, apparently, is scarier than this one, and I’m in no hurry to change that. The American version is intriguing, entertaining and just horrifying enough for now.
Speak No Evil is currently in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: A-
Principal Cast: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, Dan Hough, Kris Hitchen, Motaz Malhees, Jakob Hojkev Jorgensen
Written and directed by James Watkins.