In the new version of Speak No Evil, directed by James Watkins, Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis play Ben and Louise, a nice American couple who have recently relocated to London. (McNairy, for obscure reasons, is in the 'and' position in the credits usually reserved for big-name cameos, which might lead one to wonder just how far through the movie he's going to make it.) Unfortunately their marriage is experiencing a period of stress: Ben has been made redundant and Louise has recently indulged in a little extra-marital sexting. Their daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) has anxiety issues and just how they handle this is another point of contention between them.

So it is perhaps not surprising that they go off to Italy for a holiday and to try and get some serenity in their brains. Here they encounter, seemingly quite casually, a British family – a doctor named Paddy (James McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their mute son Ant (Dan Hough). Paddy is easy-going, loud, gregarious, good company; Ciara is pleasant and a devoted mum. The two families hit it off, and make the usual promise to stay in touch at the end of the holiday. Back in London things don't improve, and – somewhat against her better judgement – in an attempt to cheer Ben up, Louise agrees to spend a long weekend at Paddy and Ciara's house out in the remote wilds of the West Country. What, as they say, could possibly go wrong?

The film is a little vague about exactly where Paddy and Ciara live, beyond the fact it's very remote – the only clue is that Ben and Louise drive past the Cerne Abbas giant to get there (there may be a little bit of symbolism going on here), which presumably means it must be Devon or Cornwall. A little constructive ambiguity has probably served to keep irate county tourist boards off the film-makers' backs, for Speak No Evil adheres to one of the iron rules of genre cinema – just as two people who meet and dislike each other at the start of a film are fated to become fast friends and/or married by the end, so nice metropolitan families who venture away from the big city into the unchecked countryside are in for an absolutely shocking time.

And so it proves. This film is based on another version of Speak No Evil, made by our Danish cousins a couple of years ago (it would not be cricket to discuss the similarities and differences between the two films, unfortunately), and there is a very Nordic vein of chilly nihilism running through it – though, it must be said, the West Country setting means it has just a whiff of folk horror about it, too. Horror definitely being the operative word, though not necessarily in the way you might expect.

I'm not exactly an indiscriminate consumer of horror films, especially new or recent ones – go ahead and call me a wuss, I can take it – and this kind of naturalistic horror, with no SF or fantasy elements to it whatsoever, is probably my least favourite flavour, all things considered. However, the advantage of this kind of approach is that it can ground the film and allow the insertion of more 'realistic' elements of drama and social commentary without the risk of things suddenly becoming rather bathetic.

The film inevitably concludes with sequences involving power tools, other improvised weapons, some people trying to suppress a sneeze while hiding in a cupboard and others falling off the roof – and these are bracingly well-staged and gripping, with a brutal edge that never quite devolves into the film revelling in violence for its own sake. But all of this comes at the end of a loooong build-up with quite a different feel to it.

I mean, in the audience you've probably seen the trailer, or the Danish version, so you very likely know where this is going – but in a strange way this adds a certain frisson to what could look like a rather cringey comedy of manners as Ben and Louise struggle to cope with the challenging behaviour of Paddy and Ciara. There's a neat inversion of expectations where the British couple seem to be the relaxed, emotionally articulate and open ones, while the Americans are much more uptight and strait-laced – to begin with at least. Some of the scenes are genuinely funny in a watch-through-your-fingers way, but there is a rising tide of tension – even so, it is a tension built on issues such as the extent to which it is acceptable to correct and discipline other people's children.

There's also a plot thread built around the idea of masculinity in crisis – well, Ben's masculinity, at least. He's lost his job and been symbolically cuckolded by his wife, and he clearly feels that he has no real agency – and maybe he sees something appealing in McAvoy's bulked-up, practical alpha, regardless of the mind games he increasingly seems to be playing with them. But this isn't one of those films nominally about toxic masculinity which actually has nothing interesting to say on the topic; if anything, it's more about the tendency to avoid conflict even at the cost of compromising one's principles. Early on there's a moment in which Paddy forces Louise, a vegetarian, to eat a piece of meat – which she does, but only to avoid making a scene. The film suggests the social contract and standards of good behaviour are all very well, but that it's a relatively short step from being complicit in this kind of minor breach to being a party to your own destruction.

The film is well-played by all concerned, but dominating the centre ground is a muscular James McAvoy, who we haven't seen in a really good movie role for a while – probably since before the pandemic, in fact. Here he is clearly having a whale of a time in a very good part – most of the time he is the genial, maybe a touch over-loud host, but every once in a while the mask slips just for a moment and while his mouth is still in a rictus grin of amiability, the rest of his face is doing something rather different. It's a terrific, charismatic piece of acting, not short on technique – the people who make decisions about awards tend to be sniffy about genre movies, but this is as good a performance as I've seen this year.

In the same vein it would be a mistake to dismiss Speak No Evil as just a horror movie – though it is that, and a great one, too. The combination of intense, creeping tension with black comedy and social commentary and eventual outbursts of violence is very effective, producing a film which is intelligent as well as scary. This is a hell of a ride.

Also Showing

In some respects Maryam Moqadam and Behtash Sanaeetah's My Favourite Cake is one of the best and most likeable films of the year. Lily Farhadpour plays Mahin, a seventy-year-old widow and retired nurse. Life initially seems to be a struggle for her – not just from all the various little ailments she has acquired, either. Her friends live too far away for her to easily see them, her children and grandchildren have moved abroad; she is simply terribly lonely. Eventually she goes out into a seemingly half-deserted city where it feels like she doesn't belong. . . at which point an encounter with the Morality Police, for this city is Tehran, sets a spark of defiance in her heart.

What follows is essentially a very polite and slow-motion hook-up between Mahin and Faramarz (Esmail Mehrabi), a taxi driver she decides she likes the look of. Parts of both these people have clearly been repressed for too long, and it only takes the smallest of things for an intensely emotional and deeply tender relationship to spring up between them. Just as they are falling head over heels, the film has a very good try at sweeping the audience along with them. The scenes of the couple together are enormously sweet and charming.

This is another film which really has had a struggle to get released – the police raided the office of the film-makers, and it only exists because a copy of it had already been sent abroad – so it seems rather appropriate that it is essentially a devastating condemnation of the repressive Iranian regime and the toll it exacts on the lives of ordinary people every day: small things, simple experiences, that they are simply denied by their government. A powerful reminder of the importance of small moments of pleasure, if nothing else.

Awix

23.09.24 Front Page

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