GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2
Rated: MA15+
Written for the Screen and Directed by: James Watkins
Based on the Screenplay by: Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup
Produced by: Jason Blum, Paul Ritchie
Executive Producers: Beatriz Sequeira, Jacob Jarek, Christian Tafdrup
Starring: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Alix West and Dan Hough.
‘I promise you guys, it’s going to be a great weekend.’
You know when you’re in a bad situation and you want to get out. Do get out. Only to be pulled back in against your better judgment? But someone continually plays you, pulls those strings so you get burnt, played, burnt again.
Based on the screenplay of Gæsterne, written by Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup, Speak No Evil shows the game, the cat playing with the mouse.
Meet Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy) with their daughter, Agnes (Alix West).
Ben is newly redundant and a little bored. Louise fusses over their anxious daughter, Agnes, ‘Use your indoor voice.’
Then there’s Paddy (James McAvoy) cracking beers and getting it on with his young wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi). Paddy’s forward and fun.
Ciara is lovely and they have a child who’s also awkward, a son, Ant (Dan Hough), who doesn’t speak because of a condition dwarfing his tongue.
The two families get along.
Paddy is a breath of fresh air so after Louise and Ben get home to London and disappointment, they decide it’s not such a bad idea to go to the Western Country to visit their good-time new friends.
The opening scene sets up the film well: a car being driven along a dark isolated road. The reflection of a child’s face seen in the rearview mirror. The adults get out of the car, leaving the child, his reflection watching.
It’s that ominous feeling of knowing something isn’t right that continues through-out the film. The tension keeps building. But the pacing gets annoying after a while.
It’s a gradual change as Paddy’s mask begins to slip, the sly comments, ‘Don’t put yourself down, that’s my job.’
The more off-colour Paddy becomes, the more precious Louise seems so Ben doesn’t know if they should just relax and get along or get out of there.
It’s a back and forth where the subtle becomes not so subtle to then lean into the unhinged to become so crazy it’s funny. On purpose.
McAvoy steals the show as the charismatic, unhinged Paddy.
Paddy takes control through his constant manipulation, his presence claustrophobic, to the extent scenes felt empty without him.
But it’s frustrating to watch, that back and forth. I couldn’t help but groan when the family continued to get sucked in again and again.
It’s a well-made film. I just got annoyed with it.