For city couples like Ben and Louise Dalton, played by Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis in Speak No Evil, the invitation to spend a holiday in the English countryside sounds like just the respite they need to recharge their dimming batteries. Sure, they only met the hosts once, as fellow tourists on an Italian sojourn, but they seemed harmless enough — maybe even exciting in their comparably exotic lust for life. While Ben and Louise vacation with books around a pool, and responsibly abstain from alcohol before noon, Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi) like to drive motorbikes too fast and jump into lakes from rocky cliffs. Perhaps a bit of Paddy and Ciara’s joie de vivre could rub off on Ben and Louise, and besides, it’s hard enough to make friends as adults.
Thus sets in motion writer-director James Watkins’ fourth feature, a cringe-y psychological thriller that gleans cloistered dread from a typically idyllic location. Watkins adapted Speak No Evil (opening Friday), seemingly faithfully, from a 2022 Danish feature of the same name. It’s produced by Blumhouse, the prolific studio that specializes in “elevated” horror films, and it will sate fans of the genre. Its back half is a relentless escalation of suspense and bloodshed that successfully injects our lizard brains with enough dopamine to, in the moment, cloud our critical thinking. But after its calculated rush of audiovisual junk food subsides, Speak No Evil doesn’t hold up to much reflection. Its plot holes grow more glaring after the theatrical lights turn up, and despite its deft execution, the movie feels like a missed opportunity that panders where it could have challenged.
That’s because the movie’s first half is something else entirely — a patient and, for a studio picture, even daringly slow character study. In the short amount of time we’ve known them, Ben and Louise feel like real humans of a familiar liberal persuasion, as typified by Louise’s environmentally conscious vegetarianism and aversion to guns. Ben is a beta to Paddy’s alpha male, deferring to Louise on just about everything, and they differ on the best approach to treating the anxiety of their 12-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler). Each of them harbors resentments toward the other: Ben, for evidence of sexting discovered on Louise’s phone, which has decimated their sex life; and Louise, for uprooting her life and career to live with Ben in London, only for him to laid off soon after, spiraling into anger and self-loathing.
Paddy and Ciara couldn’t be more different, from the public flaunting of their sexual appetites, to Paddy’s zeal for hunting and eating animals, to Paddy’s more aggressive approach to their son Ant’s special needs. (The boy, played by Dan Hough, has been rendered mute, allegedly due to a genetic condition.)
These scenes, tense but sprinkled with nervous humor, exhibit an astuteness of modern relationship dynamics that recall a Duplass Brothers joint more than a Blumhouse nightmare. Watkins paints contrasting pictures of modern gender roles and parenting styles that speak to Western divides in culture, class and temperament. It broaches tough questions — when does a parent’s “tough love” toward their child cross the line into abuse, and when is it appropriate for other parents to object? Speak No Evil is never better than when it walks these ethical tightropes. With its layered mind games, McAvoy’s performance thrives on this initial ambiguity, in a role that’s very much in his wheelhouse, as passive-aggression devolves into just-plain aggression.
The longer it lingers, though, the sillier the film’s resolution becomes, as characters who once built up an immaculate system of protection around their wicked plans succumb to big, dumb thriller clichés. As common household items transform into makeshift weapons, Speak No Evil begins to resemble a deadly serious version of Home Alone, one tonal shift removed from slapstick.
While this turn may follow a certain generic logic, it’s a fallacy to say that Speak No Evil needed to go in this direction. It could have stayed as the art film for grown-up that it initially appears to be, one that is carried by uncomfortable truths and bilious social commentary. The setting may be a difficult place for Ben and Louise to leave, but Watkins takes the easy way out.
SPEAK NO EVIL. Director: James Watkins; Cast: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, Dan Hough, Scoot McNairy; Distributor: Universal; Rated R; opens Friday (Sept. 13) at most area theaters