Louise and Ben Dalton are a couple in trouble.
Thanks to some infidelity on Louise’s part, their marriage is a bit rocky. Then, after they uproot and move to London for a fresh start, Ben promptly loses his job. And their 11-year-old daughter, Agnes, is dealing with emotional problems that mean she can’t separate from a stuffed support bunny without a panic attack. To top it all off, Louise and Ben aren’t even self-aware enough to recognize that all three of those problem areas are interconnected.
The only thing they’re pretty sure of, is the fact that they need a bit of a break. So, they book a short vacation to Italy. Surely, a little sun, relaxation and great food will heal their woes. At least, that’s what they go there hoping.
Of course, things don’t quite turn out. What does happen, however, is an accidental meetup with Paddy, Ciara and Ant, their son.
Paddy is a force of nature: outgoing, charming, daring, loud. Ciara is beautiful and petitely sweet. And due to what Paddy calls a congenital disease, Ant is quiet and shy.
The two families click. Sorta.
They’re very different. But somehow, they get along pretty well. And “getting along” isn’t something that Ben and Louise have been very good at, as of late. So when Paddy suggests that they come out to visit their countryside farm for some true rest and relaxation, the date is set.
When the Daltons arrive at the secluded estate, they are instantly charmed by the farm and its surroundings. It’s kind of dirty … but it is country life. Paddy is very overbearing and much more heavy-handed than they remembered. But, hey, that’s his ebullient nature. There are those bruises on Ciara. But, well, she said it was a fall from a farm ladder.
Yeah, this whole visit isn’t exactly shaping up the way Louise and Ben envisioned. In fact, there are some elements that feel a little disturbing. “But you can’t let some vision of perfect be the enemy of the good,” Ben notes.
It’s not like they’re isolated out in the middle of nowhere with a couple of fiends, right?
Right?
Once Louise opens her eyes to signs that their “new friends” are trouble, she steps up to protect her daughter and to push Ben in the right direction. And she repeatedly puts her safety on the line in that effort. Ben is a little slower to grasp the necessary course of action, but he too takes a few protective risks once he realizes the true danger his family is in.
There’s no direct biblical statement made in this film, but the story does stress the fact that we live in a world that’s populated with evil. And we, in our reluctance to admit that truth, can easily fall victim to the wickedness around us.
Paddy and Ciara are not shy about stripping off their clothes. And we see them in their underwear on several occasions. They disrobe down to their underwear to go swimming in a lake, for instance. They goad Ben and Louise to do so as well. One late night, Louise also discovers that Paddy and Ciara have pulled Agnes and Ant into their bed, while only dressed in skimpy under things.
We see a number of people in bikinis and swimsuits around a resort pool.
While at dinner with Ben and Louise, Paddy and Ciara talk about their highly active sex life—something that isn’t true for Ben and Louise. Ciara begins a sexy roleplay at the table to illustrate the kinds of sexual interaction they enjoy. Then, to the Dalton’s shock, she crawls beneath the tablecloth to sexually pleasure her husband. (Then they laugh that it was all a joke.) In conversation, however, the couple later let it slip that they’ve been together for 17 years, a fact that would make Ciara very young when they first got together.
We see a hillside “Indian” artwork depicting a male figure with an erection. This disturbs Ben. And later, we learn that Ben discovered Louise’s affair when he found pictures of her lover’s genitals on her phone.
Ciara and Paddy intimate that they have an open sexual relationship to “keep things fresh.” And later, while Paddy and Ben are driving alone, Paddy sings out a love song and glares seductively at Ben to make the man uncomfortable. Paddy also kisses Louise’s neck repeatedly while hugging her goodbye.
Late in the movie, Paddy roughly grabs a young girl and declares that he’s going to make her his next wife.
Paddy reveals a dangerous, threatening side to his personality from time to time to anyone who might displease him.
[Spoiler Warning] And eventually we come to see that he is a man who has killed scores of people. We see pictures of families he’s killed and robbed, as well as the children he’s thereafter taken as his own. (It’s intimated that Ciara was a child whom he took and then made his bride.)
Paddy manhandles his “son,” Ant. And Ant mimes that Paddy cut off his tongue while displaying the stump in his mouth. We are also shown bruises and scars on both Ciara’s and Ant’s bodies.
Later in the film, victims get thumped and thrown around; hit with heavy objects; and held at gunpoint. Bullets and shotgun blasts tear through windows and walls. Someone nearly has their face driven down onto a protruding shard of glass. Another person is hit in the face by a large squirt of acidic drain cleaner that begins burning their skin.
People are left spattered by a number of very bloody moments:
A person drives a hammer claw into a victim’s skull. Someone’s face is slashed open by a box cutter. Several people fall from a roof top: One dies, the other’s leg is badly snapped. A fallen man’s face is mashed to pulp by a large stone. A Molotov cocktail hits a car causing it to explode.
Agnes drives a sharp object into her own bare thigh. Ant is thrown into a pond and almost drowns. Agnes has a panic attack and can’t breathe.
There are more than 20 f-words and a half dozen s-words in the dialogue. Joining those crudities are uses of “a–hole,” “b–tard” and “h—.”
There are eight misuses of God’s and Jesus’ names, collectively, along with two exclamations of the c-word and several crude references to male genitalia.
Between the vacation site in Italy, a pair of restaurant visits and time on the farm, the four adults are constantly drinking glasses of wine, beer, hard cider or some other liquor. (In one instance, Paddy and Ben blame their actions on inebriation.) Paddy rolls and passes a joint around. Louise declines the weed since she took some other undisclosed pain medication. A syringe full of a sedative is driven into someone’s side.
Both Paddy and Ciara tend to lie regularly, though that fact doesn’t come out until later. In truth, one of the biggest negatives here is Dalton’s inability to recognize or admit to the evil in their midst.
As odd and suspicious occurrences mount, and as Louise raises questions, Ben makes excuses for uncomfortable things. It eventually becomes clear that Ben is simply a weak man who’s afraid to stand up for what’s right until it’s too late.
Louise declares she is a vegetarian, but Paddy forces her to eat a mouthful of roast goose.
Adapted from a 2022 Danish pic of the same name, Speak No Evil is a disquieting film that showcases James McAvoy’s “I can play a charming psychopath” acting chops. In fact, McAvoy’s Paddy is so dynamically dodgy that this psychological horror drama takes on comedic overtones as his victims keep coming up with polite excuses to explain away the terrible things he’s doing.
Altogether, this foul and disturbing movie is the equivalent of watching a family slowly feed itself into a bloody meat grinder: An outcome that viewers will easily predict about 15 minutes into the film.
The only potentially positive aspect of this protractedly painful-to-watch movie would be if you squinted at it as a cautionary tale. It does indeed illustrate to its viewers that there are things in life that plan and plot to do them harm.
“Why are you doing this to us?” Ben whiningly pleads at one point. “Because you let us!” Paddy snarls back.
You might consider those trenchant words before giving the filmmakers your time and money.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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