Danish brothers Christian and Mads Tafdrup’s debut feature from 2022 stands firmly as one of the most dizzying, dark, unpleasant and downright evil films I’ve ever seen. As a genre film it was and remains absolutely brilliant and since I saw it has lingered and popped into my mind at regular intervals, which pretty much never happens these days for my own part, not after 33 years of collecting films and reviewing film since 1997. Speak No Evil (2022) was and is an outstanding film in many ways.
That Hollywood would rush to buy up the script to make their own version felt pretty obvious in advance and something I felt particularly excited about. There is no need for an American version of Speak No Evil. There is no need for a remake and especially not when it comes to the way Blumhouse Productions chose to depart from the original story.
McAvoy is always good but do yourself a big favor – Watch the Danish original instead.
In the new version, it is Xmen actor (Wanted, Split) James McAvoy who took on the role of the charismatic, outgoing alpha male Paddy (Bjørn, in the original) and it is in many ways his film, this. Director James Watkins (Eden Lake, Black Mirror) relies for large parts of the film entirely on McAvoy’s ability to fill the picture with his lavishly grandiose, busty caged manner and although James does a really fine job as the manipulative Paddy, it comes off as often in American remakes too much. Early on, Paddy feels very predictable as a character and his actions become a bit one-sided, which was not the case with Fedja van Huêt’s incredibly unfunny interpretation of the character Patrick, in the original. Then I probably like Mackenzie Davis’ more subdued and nuanced interpretation of Louise, more. Sure, she doesn’t have the same presence that McAvoy shows, but she feels more believable and “human” and acts as a moral compass in a film where the values around loyalty, family and the parental role pretty quickly go completely out of whack.
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The pitch-dark, through-and-through ending in the original has been completely rewritten. Unfortunately.
Speak No Evil (2024) offers a well-made build-up where that unfunny feeling of chronic discomfort and chronic uncertainty permeates everything. There’s really nothing wrong with the first hour and there’s a nerve here that I think works well. Not nearly as good as in the Danish original, but still good. It is in the last act and primarily during the last 30 minutes that unfortunately most of it becomes pancake, here. Unfortunately. Watkins and Blumhouse have rewritten the downright disgustingly dark, mean ending in the original film and here instead throw out a typically American finale that is so stuffed with old, tired clichés that most of the nerve and tension is thrown out the window. This is a sin. Of course, Blumhouse should never have changed the ending. They should never have redone the strongest part of a very strong film.
