It’s been sneaking up on us, but the American remake of a foreign film hardly seems the totem of failed imagination it once was. To put it generously: In the age of franchise grooming, it’s practically becoming a lost art. How do you turn a foreign breakthrough into a one-off multiplex program? Blumhouse’s latest genre piece, “Speak No Evil” — which steals the title, premise and even entire gags from Christian Taldrip’s completely fucked-up festival highlight from two years ago — is a reminder that the answer is usually pretty simple: End it as a crowd-pleaser, in this case with James McAvoy freaking out after 80 minutes of gleefully playing with his food.
As in the original film, writer-director James Watkins’ remake examines a couple who take their belief in the kindness of strangers to absurd levels. Americans Ben and Louise (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis, in a successful reunion of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire) are first seen listlessly vacationing in Italy with their 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) before an encounter with Paddy (McAvoy) and his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) brightens the trip. The British couple are gregarious enough to compensate for their mute, aloof son Ant (Dan Hough). Weeks later, back in their rainy, jobless lives in London, Ben and Louise receive an invitation to spend a weekend at Paddy and Ciara’s farmhouse. That’s a considerable amount of time spent with people who are essentially strangers. On the other hand, these are the closest friends Ben and Louise have made since moving to Europe.
Watkins shows Paddy’s dusty country estate in a disarming drone shot from an angle that could have shown the rubble of a besieged war zone. This place is clearly not worth anything. The cramped quarters are full of ugly paintings and dirty ceilings, and come with a particularly unwelcome surprise: Agnes has to share a bedroom with Ant. Ben and Louise shrug off the faux pas, but it’s only the first step on the road to a harsh ordeal.
Taldrip’s original, “Speak No Evil,” was an aggressively controlled (and particularly schematic) examination of that kind of adherence to the unspoken rules of polite society that can quell a vociferous fight-or-flight response. While this remake opens with a similar tension, McAvoy’s wide, knife-edged grin quickly dissolves any semblance of social credibility. But the film is no match for Paddy’s grittiness, and is a comedy about a bad marriage crumbling under the fist of an inherently mad holiday host. While that’s hardly his modus operandi, McAvoy has proven he can overact like few actors of his generation, with unforgettable performances like that of the intoxicated evil lieutenant in “Filth” or the soft-hearted, multiple-personality supervillain in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split.”
Playing a guy you just can’t win with, the actor proves a strong engine for Speak No Evil, even if the film doesn’t risk defining Paddy. There’s a hint of politically incorrect sensationalism in the way he questions Louise’s vegetarianism, a touch of misogyny in the way he plays Ben’s ally while discussing his marriage, and even an offhand remark hints at possible paedophile tendencies. Unfortunately, such isolated instances of deviant behavior don’t add up to a coherent personality, let alone an ideology, that could help the film become genuinely provocative. McAvoy carries scenes to a few memorable endings – pantomimed fellatio while dining out, a micromanaged “Cotton Eye Joe” dance number – but Speak No Evil can’t wring much sustained tension from his performance as the film barrels toward an obvious destination.
Instead, the film’s driving performance ultimately comes from McNairy, a reliable supporting actor who more than lives up to this rare opportunity when the joke is on his expense. When “Speak No Evil” reveals problems in the central marriage, Ben’s bruised masculinity becomes the bedrock of the couple’s inaction. All the better when the remake veers entirely away from the original film’s grim ending and instead ventures into “No Man’s Dare” territory, complete with British backwoodsmen, barricaded corridors and a Yankee who must prove his masculinity. The violence seems even more thinly conceived than the comedy of bad manners that came before. But the sustained inaction between gunfire, which McNairy renders truly pathetic, confirms and furthers the film’s winning sense of humor.
