The 'Speak No Evil' Remake Completely Betrays The Spirit of the Original (And I'm Fine With That)
Comparing the new 'Speak No Evil' with the 2022 original. Plus: a few thoughts on 'The Substance.'
[This post will contain spoilers for both versions of Speak No Evil, plus David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.]
There's a moment at the end of David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where the protagonist Mikael Blomkvist has figured out who the serial killer is. He's hanging around outside the killer's house trying to find proof of his misdeeds, but then the killer notices him and invites Blomkvist into his house. Blomkvist doesn't want to say no because it would be awkward but as a result Blomkvist ends up being tied up in the killer's torture dungeon. The killer then poses the question to Blomkvist:
Why don’t people trust their instincts? They sense something’s wrong - someone’s walking too close behind them - yet they don’t cross the street. You knew something was wrong. You even knew what it was, but you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I grab you and drag you in? I just offered you a drink. You’d never think the fear of offending could be stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is. They always come willingly.
Speak No Evil — both the 2022 original directed by Christian Tafdrup and the 2024 remake directed by James Watkins (now out in theaters) —is a movie-length version of this scene.
The premise of both films is similar: A family is away on holiday when they meet and bond with another family of strangers. They get invited to a remote vacation home but as the trip continues, the second family start behaving in unsettling and strange ways that point to more upsetting motives. Both films explore the boundaries of social propriety and what people are willing or unwilling to do to prevent awkwardness and social stigma, even in the face of almost certain danger.
The 2022 original film was a provocation. The original Danish family — Bjørn and Louise and their daughter Agnes — discovers that the Dutch couple they’ve befriended are actually a pair of serial killers who entrap and murder families, then take the children as their own to use as bait for the next family. Before they can do anything about it, Agnes has been kidnapped and mutilated and Bjørn and Louise are taken out into the middle of nowhere and stoned to death. Before he dies, Bjørn asks why the couple is doing this and gets the response that is also the thesis of the film: “Because you let me.”
I remember quietly seething with rage while watching the original, even as I admired its audacity. I’m typically a direct person who speaks my mind and I have a healthy dose of stranger danger, so the idea of being in Bjørn and Louise’s situation was pretty much unthinkable to me; watching it unfold over the course of 98 minutes was therefore excruciating. And the film’s ending, with its child mutilation and the brutal murder of its protagonists, just felt so edgelord-y, provocative, and pointless — a real “fuck you” to the audience for looking for any kind of emotional catharsis and satisfaction.
And yet.
The elements that make the film so maddening are what make it so distinctive. The film has an incredibly bleak outlook on the nature of humanity. It presupposes that lurking beneath a kind exterior, there’s evil in the heart of many a person, and our inability to call it out will lead to our undoing. Even if Speak No Evil (2022) is not a film I feel comfortable recommending to literally anyone, it’s trying to say something and as a result, it’s difficult to ignore.
All that is more than I can say for the 2024 American remake. For the first two thirds of the film, the plot is virtually identical to the original. Ben and Louise and their daughter Agnes meet Paddy, Ciara, and their son Ant on vacation, before being invited to a getaway in the countryside. The social awkwardness between the Danish and the Dutch from the original film is transplanted into the social awkwardness between Louise and Ben’s relatively staid and uptight lifestyle vs. Paddy and Ciara’s free-spirited ruggedness. The new film does a great job at replicating the unsettling feeling of spending a lot of time with people who don’t quite have the same social boundaries as you do.
But the film’s final act veers into completely new territory. While Louise/Ben/Agnes still figure out that Paddy and Ciara are serial killers, Paddy initially gets the upper hand and ties up the family, forcing them to transfer their savings into his bank account. But Louise/Ben/Agnes are somehow able to get away and hole up in the house where they grab a bunch of random items and fight for their lives. The final act of the movie becomes a siege film, with Louise, Ben, and Agnes not only triumphing over Paddy and Ciara (who are both killed), but also rescuing Ant from certain doom.
I still enjoyed the 2024 version of the film, but it is a much more conventional film in every way. Paddy and Ciara’s financial motive for the killings makes them feel more like actual physical human beings that exist in our world, as opposed to the serial killers in the 2022 original, who feel much more like a Joker-esque personification of evil. And the relatively happy ending feels like the platonic ideal of an American studio note: “You can’t end on a downer!”
While the newer film is ultimately more forgettable, I didn’t mind its big changes. It still lands some of the points from the original about how we behave with strangers, while being much more of a crowdpleaser for American audiences. And if people don’t like the new ending, you can always watch the 2022 original, which is widely available and largely in English. Given this, why not try a new ending and see what people think of it? Let a thousand endings bloom, I say. At the end of the day, I think it’s fascinating how keeping a film’s plot largely intact but changing the ending can have such a profound impact on the film’s final impact.
Speak No Evil (2022) is a movie that infuriated me and made me consider what it is I’m looking for when I watch a thriller. Speak No Evil (2024) is much more enjoyable but at the end of the day, it’s probably not a movie I’ll think about again.
Does ‘The Substance’ Have Any Substance?
A quick word on The Substance: I had a blast with this movie. Ostensibly a satire about how Hollywood treats aging women, The Substance is mostly an over-the-top and well-executed body horror film. It’s not particularly subtle, its points are not complex, and there’s much that remains unexplained at the end of the film. But Demi Moore delivers a wonderful performance, the cinematography/music/set design is exquisite, and the special effects are unbelievably ambitious.
The Substance is a movie that keeps upping the ante and just when it gets to a point when you feel the film cannot be more extreme, it surprises you once again. That said, this film has a very specific wavelength and I totally understand being put off by it. It’s 2 hours and 20 minutes long and it is relentless in tone and theme for that entire runtime.
I loved it.
Other Stuff I’ve Made
On Decoding TV, we discussed how the Emmys continue to be a maddening experience. Plus, some thoughts on Agatha All Along and how it does or doesn’t fit into the MCU. Listen here.
On The Filmcast, we discussed the results of our Summer Movie Wager (one of our most popular episodes each year). Always a fun time.
Dave, I just saw THE SUBSTANCE yesterday, and I loved it, too, even though I’ll have to be careful about who I’ll recommend it to. (You can view a quick reaction/take on my Insta reel from yesterday.) I was struck by the relentless level of intensity the movie was able to maintain…it just never let up, and kept gong further than one thought was possible! It also managed to NOT seem derivative, even though it contained elements reminiscent of Cronenberg’s THE BROOD and THE FLY, Lynch’s THE ELEPHANT MAN, and even DePalma’s CARRIE and Kubrick’s THE SHINING. So it seemed like both an homage and something wholly original…quite a feat, I’d say! And Demi Moore….I had barely thought of her in years, and she was astonishingly good. Thanks for the rec, and for your excellent writing and analysis, as always.
Your articulation of Speak No Evil is exactly how I've felt and have articulated without spoilers on the Bloody Awesome Movie Podcast and my review at Berkreviews.com. I do think the 2022 film will sit with us longer as it is devastating and bleak, I think there is more than a "happy" ending at the end of the 2024 version. Ant is forever traumatized. There is a lingering shot on him and I think it speaks to our relationship with violence here in the US. When he is the one who takes the final swing, my audience let out a cathartic cheer. Is he going to grow up and be a functional, contributing member of society, or will he perpetuate violence? That has its own bleakness that should resonate with American audiences in a different way.