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The Speak No Evil Remake Is Sillier (and Better) Than the Original
The American remake loses something in ditching the unrelenting darkness, but it also avoids the original’s borderline reactionary message.
Speak No Evil is a U.S. remake of a Danish 2022 thriller whose tension hinged on what it would take for its protagonists, a couple with a near-pathological aversion to conflict, to flee a weekend visit to an increasingly ominous Dutch family they met while on vacation. In comparison to their constipated, cautious lives, Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara ( The Nightingale ’s Aisling Franciosi) look downright liberated, holding dance parties in their hotel room and taking their son, Ant (Dan Hough), tootling around cobblestone streets on a rented Vespa in the Italian town where they’re all vacationing. I didn’t mind that, ultimately, because while the remake loses something in ditching the original’s unrelenting drive toward darkness, it also avoids what it leaves unsaid, which is a borderline reactionary message about needing to overcome compliant liberalism to step up to protect oneself and one’s family.
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