Denmark/Netherlands. 2022.
Crew
Director – Christian Tafdrup, Screenplay – Christian Tafdrup & Mads Tafdrup, Producer – Jacob Jarek, Photography – Erik Molberg Hansens, Music – Sune “Køter” Kølster, Visual Effects – Storm Post Production (Supervisor – Nina Lankveld), Production Design – Sabine Hviid. Production Company – Profile Pictures/Oak Motion Pictures/Danske Filminstituet V/Filmkonsulent Mikkel Munch-Fals/Filmfyn V/Klaus Hansen/The Netherlands Film Production Incentive.
Cast
Morten Burian (Bjorn), Sidsel Siem Koch (Louise), Fedja van Huet (Patrick), Karin Smulders (Karin), Liva Forsberg (Alice), Marius Damslev (Abel), Hichem Yacoubi (Muhajid)
Plot
Danish husband and wife Bjorn and Louise are on holiday in Tuscany with their daughter Alice. There they meet and befriend Dutch couple Patrick and Karin, while Alice makes friends with their son Abel. After returning home, they receive a letter from Patrick and Karin saying how much they enjoyed their time together and inviting them to come and visit. Bjorn and Louise decide to take them up on their offer. However, after arriving, they become increasingly disturbed by Patrick and Karin’s blurring of social niceties and travelling over a line of acceptable behaviour.
Speak No Evil was the third film for Christian Tafdrup, a former actor in Denmark. As director, Tafdrup had previously made the surreal Parents (2016) and the non-genre A Horrible Woman (2017). Tafdrup based the film on a real-life experience where he met an odd couple while on holiday in Tuscany with his family, who later wrote inviting them to come and stay. He never took up the invite but based the film on his worst imaginings about what might have happened.
There have been quite a number of films about houseguests and tenants who proceed to turn disturbed from Pacific Heights (1990) to Cleopatra’s Second Husband (1998) to The Guest (2014). However, Speak No Evil must be the first instance of a film about sinister hosts. There have been assorted works where people are imprisoned but this is not quite the same. Indeed, as this film demonstrates, there seems little reason why the guests are unable to simply pick up their things and leave. The film has to keep coming up with reasons for them to stay – the daughter leaving behind her favourite toy, the hosts dismissing all their objections and pleading that they can make things better.
Speak No Evil is a film about boundaries – about some people who willingly tread over them and others who are too polite and nice to do anything about it. A good deal of the film consists of watching the Danish couple reacting to their hosts doing things like making out in public, playing loud music while driving, inviting their daughter into their bed, or pushing the vegetarian wife to try some meat. There’s a particularly a horrible scene where the Dutch husband (Fedja van Huet) verbally abuses and bullies the son (Marius Damsley) for not getting a dance routine right. Much of what goes on comes in what is not said. Right at the end, Morten Burlan asks “Why are you doing this?” to which Fedja van Huet simply answers “Because you let me.”
Most of the film rests in Black Humour rather than horror. The actual horror element does not enter until right near the end. There is a joltingly shock scene where [PLOT SPOILERS] the Dutch couple abruptly turn and cut the daughter’s tongue out with a pair of scissors. All before the film reaches a grim ending, followed by a nasty epilogue as we see things starting all over again.
From this, we can see that Christian Tafdrup has constructed exactly what he states – a film based on his worst imaginings about the scenario – and not one where he seems to have placed much thought into the motivations of the Dutch couple. [PLOT SPOILERS] Why exactly do a married couple pose with children that are not theirs in order to befriend and invite other couples to their place to them to kill them? It seems surely a means of selecting victims that has a high chance of blow outs. Not to mention is one that surely would leave a trial of clues leading authorities to them – GPS traces, cellphone pings, the guests leaving behind the address of where they are going etc. For that matter, how do a couple who claim to be unemployed manage to afford so many vacations?
Trailer here