Speak no Evil (film): McAvoy does a good job. It's not great, not terrible

The horror genre or thriller genre is tough to do right so it is understandable that people would experience such difficulty in doing something new and fresh. What goes on in this one isn't necessarily original - it actually has been done many times before. What made this movie something special for me is that James McAvoy doesn't normally do stuff like this and I thought he did quite a good job in his role, even though there are a ton of plot holes in this one that while necessary to the overall story, leave you shaking your head throughout. I wouldn't say that this movie is scary so much as it is really cringe but also at the same time I think it will be a little bit familiar to most people who have found themselves in uncomfortable situations that they didn't know how to get out of.

Therein lies the relatability that I personally believe is kind of essential to getting horror to work and is why I found Smile so refreshing. If you can take something that almost everyone has experienced and turn it into something scary, then the audience will resonate with it more.

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The start of this film isn't the best because it does take a long time in the setup before anything really related to the plot ever happens. A family is traveling with their daughter and while they are having a good time they really aren't getting along with the other travelers that are in the lodge with them until they meet this very charismatic and fun couple and their son that they immediately hit it off with. This changes their otherwise boring vacation into something extremely memorable.

A few months after arriving back home from their initial vacation they are invited out to the countryside to the other couple's house to spend some time with them. This is when the "fun" begins as far as this movie is concerned.

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Paddy(McAvoy) and Ciara are the hosting couple and they live a very unusual life that at first glance is quite admirable. They live in stark contrast to almost everyone else and certainly differently than Louise and Ben who live a city life filled with cramped environments and the annoyances that come along with attempting to get some peace in a place like London.

When the city folk first arrive at the country folk's estate they are really drawn back at the peace and quiet, as well as how this couple they just met on vacation live an unusual life filled with things that the rest of the world has kind of turned their backs on. They eat clean food that they grow themselves, they bottle their own cider, and live off the land despite the fact that Paddy is a successful doctor with rather massive access to financial resources. Ben and Louise are taken aback by their lives and also really enjoy the fact that their daughter Agnes, who doesn't make friends easily, really gets along with Paddy and Ciara's son Ant. Ant is a central part of the film because he cannot speak because of a disease he was born with that makes his tongue smaller than most people's and therefore he is incapable of talking.

As the days go by the city family starts to lose their admiration of the country family as they start to see increasingly bizarre and aggressive behavior on the part of the country family that makes them uneasy and while I'd like to say that you'll never see the eventuality coming, it is pretty obvious that there is going to be a clash between the two families at one point or another.

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Paddy slowly starts to reveal himself as more than a bit deranged and this is one thing I like about the film a lot: I never really considered James McAvoy to be a great actor but his slow and steady descent into revealing his true self is something that the actor does expertly. He maintains a façade of being this charismatic outgoing person for a long time but as time and booze start to take over his transition into his true personality starts to take form. Eventually the interactions become one of the visiting family being held prisoner and fighting for their lives. I don't consider this a spoiler because it is basically spelled out for you in the trailer and it's also pretty evident based on the opening sequence that this is not a "fun in the countryside" sort of film.

There are some irritating aspects of the film that result in the city family not being able to leave the countryside estate early when they experience some strange instances that make them want to flee but I am not going to reveal those to you and would like you to discover them for yourself. You'll know what I am talking about when it happens. It just seems a bit unreasonable that the city family would ever get to the point where they were trapped but the film-makers needed them to be trapped so these rather silly things they throw into the story that are very conveniently timed for the story to work out the way that it does is a bit annoying. Of course mobile phones don't work because that is a necessary part of any modern day "trapped" film that is needed for plausibility.

This is a USA remake of a successful Danish Film with the same name that I have not yet seen but if it is anything like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I would bet that the original is a lot better than the remake and I will have to go and check that one out to see if and how they butchered a good foreign film again.

Should I watch it?

I think this film is good mostly because of the "cringe factor" and this is the part of the production that I think all of us can relate to although we likely were not trapped in a remote place when it happened. We have all met someone or a couple that were a bit "off" and since most people are polite we endure their presence for the sake of being cordial. This film takes that idea of being too polite to a really high degree that hopefully nobody actually ever does experience. While this movie has almost nothing terribly surprising happen, and the name kind of gives away what is going on with the farm family in the first place, I did find the performances of the actors, particularly James McAvoy, to be very well done. If you are fan of the thriller genre I think you will enjoy this even though it does take about 40 minutes for us to get to the bread and butter of this movie's overall plot.

I can't fully recommend it because of the slow pacing at the start and the fact that the ending is something you can see coming from miles away. It does offer some good moments of terror and dread and is better than most remakes that I've seen. That being said, it isn't excellent and therefore I would only give it a 6/10 or so.

_{It is difficult to tell where this can be legally streamed because of the Danish original film with the same name. I can only confirm that the US version is available to stream on AMC+ and Shudder. As usual you can pay to rent it on Amazon, Microsoft, AppleTV and others}