Speak No Evil
“Speak No Evil” is a remake of a Danish film that already held a lot of critical acclaim. I really hate the “remaking already good movies” trend that's shown up over the last 20 years. Remakes should be reserved for bad movies with good concepts (like movies from the 80s and before). But every now and then a remake sneaks through that didn't need to be done, but pulls it off (“Let Me In” being a quality remake of “Let The Right One In”). Although I do have the original “Speak No Evil”, at the time of this review I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. But what I can say definitively is that as a movie on it's own terms, “Speak No Evil” (2024) is not only a great movie, it will end up falling on my “Best Of” list for this year.
James McAvoy has had a pretty stellar run as an actor, being a great Professor X in the First Class franchise, and being several characters as a split personality villain in “Split”. He almost combines them here for an absolute powerhouse performance as a devilishly sharp monster. You know going in that there's something wrong with his character, but for a long time he's so likeable and energetic you totally believe that the other characters are being suckered into his facade. You only see little shimmers of the cracks beginning to form for a large portion of the movie, but by the end when everything is revealed you've been left with a tour de force performance that I have no problem saying is worthy of award consideration.
Come for McAvoy, but stay for everyone else. All the actors are given substantial roles to play and they all commit and knock it out of the park. Even (thankfully) the child actors, who are in extremely serious roles. It would be incredibly easy to see them fumble this, especially the mute child actor Ant played by Dan Hough. For a young kid, his role is extremely complicated and he pulls through and adds so much believability to the situation. Especially as things progress.
Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis play the fraying married couple drawn to be friends with McAvoy. Davis is cautious from the beginning, while McNairy is (intentionally?) blind to everything going on because he's so impressed with the things McAvoy spouts off. It's a situation I've absolutely seen play out many times (though not in a situation involving life or death consequences). But how many times have you seen a couple where one is having a miserable time, and the other ignores them because they're enjoying whatever it is is going on? That's the kind of setup they're working with here, and both of them pull off their respective roles with shining colours.
The less you know about the movie the better, and although the tension is almost unbearable at times, I wouldn't exactly call this a horror movie. More a thriller. And as I was watching it, even though there are some extremely high stress moments, I kept thinking that this is a movie almost anyone could handle, even someone like my Mom (who is not a fan of horror).
With top tier acting, beautiful cinematography, and a brilliant use of audio (in favour of using sounds of the forest and silence in place of the usual horror trope of having constant ominous music, which I find is a cheap way of setting up jump scares in an actually not scary at all situation cue eye roll), “Speak No Evil” is a major win for the remake argument.
10/10 - Masterpiece
