Contrived Psychological Horror Speak No Evil Targets Self-Destructive Civility

This review originally ran as part of Paste’s 2022 Sundance coverage

A sort of thought experiment about the worst possible things that could come about because of terminal politeness, Speak No Evil’s psychological horror is also one where the buy-in requires you to embrace the existence of self-destructive civility and an equal and opposite force willing to take every advantage of it. Writer/director Christian Tafdrup’s horror of manners can skillfully build tension, but some of its contrivances getting everything into place disrupt a film that otherwise conjures its dark powers from its itchy realism. If you’re prone to getting taken out of these kinds of things by leaps in logic made by characters that’ve never seen movies, Speak No Evil openly flaunts your pet peeves.

Maybe it’s a European thing. If Danish Bjorn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), parents in the midst of a mid-vacation midlife crisis, didn’t immediately accept the invitation to visit the too-charming Dutch couple they met in Tuscany—Patrick (Fedja van Huet) and Karin (Karina Smulders)—like desperate and friendless people begging to be taken advantage of, then none of this would’ve happened. But they do. And it does. At least Bjorn and Louise’s daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) gets to play with the creepy and silent Abel (Marius Damslev). Hooray.

This dark jab at adult relationships, at how hard it is to make new friends and fulfill certain social needs when you’ve established your life in a specific way, has a high-level honesty to it. How many classes, dog parks and gyms serve as hunting grounds? And how different is ensnaring a potential pal from something a lot scarier? But Speak No Evil is a bit broader than that as its Dutch family slowly but surely annoys their houseguests. They play music too loud, they serve too much meat to the vegetarian Louise, they’re over-familiar with Agnes, they let loose with dancing, drinking and making out. The Danes are far too nice to take issue with these things immediately, opting instead to suppress their qualms until the bursting point. Respectively too presumptuous and too submissive, the couples are quick to project the bad times to come as they return again and again to the isolated countryside estate despite our vocal protests towards the screen.