Speak No Evil's Toxic Traits 

SPEAK NO EVIL. It was only after seeing this English language remake — a softer version than the 2022 original Danish film of the same title, I'm told — that I realized the Danes must be a good deal tougher and take their drama bleaker than I do ("Hell is Visiting Other People," Sept. 22, 2022). Because if this is the cheery Hollywood version, well, damn. Director James Watkins may have shown a measure of mercy on us with the remake, but the end product is still an unrelentingly uncomfortable, frustrating and frightening psychological thriller that maybe you shouldn't see with your spouse if you're having any tension these days.

Ben and Louise (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) are traveling in Italy with their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) in the wake of a move to London for his work and the swift closure of his branch office. Now at leisure from his job and the career Louise left in the U.S. when they moved, they are free to dwell on their marital tension and Ben's anxiety over how their daughter copes with her anxiety, mostly by clinging to a stuffed bunny he thinks she's too old for. They vacation-bond with forcefully gregarious doctor Paddy (James McAvoy), who speaks with rapid-fire sureness as if into a podcast mic, and pixie-ish Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and their son Ant (Dan Hough), who doesn't speak. Their casual invitation for the new Londoners to visit them in the West Country away is followed up with a postcard reminder that, against all sense and vibes, they accept, though with more enthusiasm on Ben's part. Once at the old, ramshackle farm, awkward moments bloom into creepiness as boundaries are pushed and Louise, in particular, is pressured to ignore her instincts to avoid conflict, even when things turn scary.

McAvoy's ability to make sudden, jolting shifts from charm to intimidation to raw vulnerability is put to good use here, both in moments where Paddy's emotions are ricocheting around a dining room or when he's changing tack for manipulation. Running roughshod over Ben and Louise's boundaries, as when he sits their daughter on his Vespa despite their misgivings or presses vegetarian Louise to taste roast goose, is a kind of seduction, particularly of Ben. He wears them down past polite refusal and waits for them to choose manners over standing up for themselves, peace over right. And in doing so, Ben is drawn to his power. McNairy conveys not only Ben's weakness, but the particular alchemy of fragile masculinity in which dominance over women becomes a way of expressing fealty, sometimes deeply obsequiously, to other men. (Ben sitting up in bed with a book Paddy recommends about lassoing his inner cowboy is moment of comic relief and thematic reinforcement.) If the homoerotic element of this dynamic wasn't driven home by Paddy's car karaoke with intense eye contact that may change the Bangles for you forever, their primal screaming by a phallic tower should do it.

Somewhere in the root cellar of my mind is the fear that a loose militia of straight dudes in tank tops and flannels will take up this film and McAvoy's molar-grinding aggression as a model of power to be emulated in the same way others took Fight Club's (1999) skewering of toxic masculinity as a how-to for better living. That "red-pilled" right wingers found their spiritual home in The Matrix (1999) — made by trans filmmakers the Wachowski sisters — is more mind twisting than the franchise's plots could have ever hoped to be.

Watkins may escape this fate if only by the lack of glamour in Speak No Evil. The interiors are a grubby contrast to the scenic countryside and you could not pay me to eat off a plate in that kitchen. Even the action, which takes off with a shot in the third act, is a messy, stumbling business without a hint of slickness.

Davis' Louise spends most of the film at tables fighting to balance civility and dignity while on the defense from questions about her ethics and parenting, and in private, navigating the damage she's done to her marriage and her husband. But when things get heavy, makes a believable leap from wariness and complaint to scrambling action. Like everyone, though, she's working in McAvoy's unhinged shadow. Well, everyone but the desperate Ant, to whom my mind continues to stray in the wake of young Hough's intense performance. (Is he OK? Someone please check on this child.) That it's as affecting as it is despite the spoilers in the trailers and ads is not nothing, either. If Ben and Louise are an object lesson in the perils of going along to get along, Ant demonstrates the damage wrought by both extremes, and the false hope we pin on resilience. R. 110M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the `. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill.

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