James McAvoy, unfortunately, undercuts Speak No Evil's greatest grounded virtues

Unless you're stuck on a "holiday in my head", a vacation is a great chance to see the wider world. Let your taste buds explore new food! Allow your fingers to feel heretofore unknown textures! As Ben (Scott McNairy) and Louise Dalton (Mackenzie Davis) can attest, a vacation is also a prime opportunity to meet new people. The duo's Italian vacation with daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) has them crossing paths with Paddy (James McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and largely mute son Ant (Dan Hough). Paddy is a gregarious spirit that Ben immediately latches onto during their time in the bright Italian countryside.

Returning home to soggy London, Ben and Louise find themselves unable to escape the torment of their troubled marriage. That’s when they get a postcard from Paddy’s family inviting the Daltons for a weekend at their lavish farm. After a little pressuring from Ben, this trio packs their bags and heads out to Paddy’s isolated home. Here, Louise immediately feels uneasy around a couple whose “hospitality” means shoving goose meat down her vegetarian neck. Still, she puts on a happy face even as this household's ominous air and possessiveness only increases. If you’ve seen that inescapable Speak No Evil trailer that’s been on every theatrical movie for the last five months, you know that Louise’s initial suspicions are right on the money. Paddy’s family is NOT to be trusted.

Stephen King’s hatred for Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining is no state secret. One key reason King dislikes this feature? Jack Nicholson’s casting as Jack Torrance. For King, casting Nicholson as this character telegraphs the man’s psychological descent much too far in advance. While I personally disagree with this author over Nicholson’s The Shining work, his critique bounced around my brain while I was watching Speak No Evil. Writer/director James Watkins (remaking the 2022 Danish horror film of the same name from director Christian Tafdrup) demonstrates a keen eye here for executing quiet tension. However, his direction of McAvoy as Paddy is heavily miscalculated.

From the very start of Speak No Evil, McAvoy's Paddy both looks and acts like he's just a few minutes away from turning into a serial killer. Part of the problem is just the man’s physique. Veins pepper McAvoy’s neck like pepperonis on a pizza. His biceps seem to be bursting out of the Hawaiian shirts he’s wearing. Paddy doesn’t look like a rural man-of-the-land contrasting with urban Ben driving around in his Tesla. He alternatively looks like Dave Bautista or a stunt double who’d portray Jason Voorhees. No matter how much the Atonement star cranks up the charm in his initial Italy-set scenes with the Daltons, Paddy always comes across as the wrong kind of intimidating. The script needs him to be overbearing, not physically looming.  

McAvoy’s appearance here evokes the "everyone is beautiful and no one is horny" problem in modern male movie stars. Paddy’s such a muscular creation that we can never buy him as just a person. He always looks like he’s ready for a fight, which doesn’t make it “shocking” when he exhibits violent tendencies. It's one thing to go to the countryside with Jimmy Stewart only for him to turn out to be Anthony Perkins. It's another to go to the countryside with Sydney Greenstreet and then act like it's "shocking" when he turns out to be a baddie! Compounding problems is that McAvoy’s been directed to play Paddy so generically. His performance consists heavily of constant growling, teeth gnashing, or shooting daggers at Louise.

His acting style especially undercuts a sequence where McAvoy’s Paddy monologues about how abusive his parents were and the innately toxic nature of parenthood. McAvoy's line deliveries are just too aggressive, they boil with simmering rage. Everything from his posture to the way each word escapes his lips suggests he's seconds away from smashing everything in sight. As Paddy rambles about the wickedness of bringing kids into this world, all I could think of was that ProZD video lampooning the overly obvious dialogue of “surprise” villains. With McAvoy's performance making Paddy’s dark psychology so clear from the start, where’s the tension? It’s as if Speak No Evil wants Paddy to epitomize King’s interpretation of why Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance didn’t work!

McAvoy’s miscalculated lead performance undermines a movie that, otherwise, does have some solid chops at committing to a subdued atmosphere. Speak No Evil producer Jason Blum has often said that he aims for Blumhouse horror movies to work even when there aren't ghosts or geysers of blood filling the screen. That mission statement is especially clear in how much Watkins emphasizes quiet domestic life throughout Speak No Evil. Extended scenes of Ben and Louise arguing in their bedrooms transpire with nary an intrusive musical cue or jump. For much of the script, the “scares” emanate mostly from social awkwardness. Meat being forced on vegetarians, for example, or tense dinnertime conversations on ethical animal consumption. These are the scenarios informing several suspenseful Speak No Evil sequences.

A rock-solid cast (save for a mishandled McAvoy) lends a sense of naturalism to these prickly interactions. Mackenzie Davis especially emerges as a standout with her achingly realistic depiction of a woman trapped in social hell. Her vivid eyes say so much about Louise’s discomfort even when she has to put on a grin for her husband. Kudos too to The Nightingale's leading lady Aisling Franciosi for her quietly unnerving work as Ciara. Executing the character with a permanent grin and a soft voice, Franciosi constantly keeps you on edge. Is she just a good host? Is there something eerie going on with this lady? Franciosi nicely keeps you guessing.

Speak No Evil’s greatest attributes linger on mundane sources of terrors. Watkins wrings frights out of relatable thorny social circumstances while lingering his camera on ragged fights between spouses. Vivid humanity informs the best performances from Davis and Franciosi. Tragically, though, the third act devolves into a standard home invasion movie. Whizzing bullets, didactic expository dialogue, and a Molotov cocktail dominate the screen rather than quiet chills. McAvoy’s miscalculated performance isn’t the only way Speak No Evil stumbles in balancing traditional horror movie impulses with more naturalistic ambitions. Speak No Evil is much better than other recent Blumhouse horror titles like Halloween Ends or They/Them. However, you might have a better (or at least more consistently enjoyable) time on that “holiday in my head”.