Through a swell of fraught social interactions and breached etiquette, an atmosphere of creeping dread steadily pervades Speak No Evil. The Danish psychological horror film simmers with tension that builds from a general sense of existential ennui to situation-specific unease, ultimately spilling over into something far more sinister.
Director Christian Tafdrup, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Mads, positions his film as a dark social satire for much of its runtime, even as the slow-reveal of the horror elements are loudly foreshadowed early on through use of an ominous score, one rife with strings and horns that imbue even idyllic countryside scenes with a sense of unseen menace. Much like 2016’s The Invitation, the film’s foreboding tone hinges on the lurking suspicion that something is not right.
The film draws the majority of its suspense from the subtle violation of decorum and mores, as palpable discomfort felt by the film’s principals, a Danish family on holiday, seems to vacillate between the result of either picking up on red flags or simply being uptight. Their fear of being the latter just might be their undoing.
Speak No Evil opens with an awkward social encounter, as Bjørn (Morten Burian), a Dutch man on holiday in Tuscany with his family, has his poolside reverie interrupted by a request from a fellow guest to move his personal effects from an empty chair. From the outset, the other man seems to possess all the boldness that Bjørn lacks, even going so far as to offer a lengthy toast to a table full of international strangers at a fancy resort dinner.
Before long, however, Bjørn and his wife Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) befriend both the man, a doctor named Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), and his wife Karin (Karina Smulders)―a Dutch couple whose son Abel (Marius Damslev) is about the same age as the Danes’ daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg). They get along famously, so much so that, months later, Bjørn and Louise receive a postcard from the Dutch family inviting them to spend a weekend at their country home. There are a million reasons not to go, not least of which is that they hardly know the family. But as Bjørn rationalizes at a dinner party with friends, “It would be a little impolite to decline.”
Throughout much of the visit, it seems as though there’s a struggle between brashness and propriety. Early on, Louise tells her husband she finds the Dutch couple unpleasant, a feeling that’s compounded when Patrick pushes back against Louise’s moral assertions about her vegetarianism, manipulates Bjørn into picking up the tab for a lavish dinner out and then blasts abrasive music while driving them all home while drunk. Elsewhere, personal space is violated and liberties are taken in ways that could simply be chalked up to personal or cultural differences, and the only common language being English allows each family to engage in secretive sidebars in their native tongues.
But then there are the objectively alarming aspects of the visit. Abel is sullen and withdrawn, wailing often at night. At one point, the boy opens his mouth to show Bjørn he has no tongue, a condition Patrick cites as congenital aglossia. Patrick is rough with the boy, violently chastising him for things as simple as not dancing in rhythm, and Karin starts speaking with authority to Agnes, much to the consternation of the girl’s protective mother. Bjørn, meanwhile, seems caught in the middle, as he admits to Patrick that he feels like a spectator in his own life and that he resents the humdrum aspects of modern domestic life. He seems drawn to Patrick as much as he is unsettled by him at times, in one scene opening up to the point of tears as he describes the claustrophobia he feels every day. There’s something wild inside him, he says, but he keeps it chained up.
When Speak No Evil unleashes cold brutality in its third act, its no less shocking given the many omens scattered along the way. The film excels at framing etiquette as something that both constricts authenticity and also serves as flimsy protection from humanity’s basest impulses. Speak No Evil argues that proper social conduct often causes people to work against their own best interests, and the most insidious forms of peril are the kinds we walk right into because it’d be rather impolite to decline.
Photo courtesy of IFC Midnight
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