How much of your boundaries will you allow others to bend or break? How much would you sacrifice in the name of civility? Speak No Evil touches on the subjects listed and asks the audience, “Well how far would this story go for you?” This film is a tension-filled slow burn that pulls the audience in for a devastating finale.

On a family getaway in the Italian countryside, Bjørn (Morten Burian), wife Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) and daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) meet a wonderful couple and quickly become vacation friends. Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), Karin (Karina Smulders) and their mute son Abel (Marius Damslev) are a seemingly normal family. Patrick is an exuberant extrovert who has a certain mesmerizing bravado to himself and Karin is a warm figure to offset her husband’s personality. Both families enjoy the remaining vacation time together and go their separate ways. Not long after returning home from their vacation, Bjørn and Louise receive an invitation from their new friends to come out to their cabin in the Dutch countryside. While reluctant at first, Bjørn jokingly states, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

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The weekend trip quickly turns from awkward to tense. Cultures clash over different approaches to parenting, hosting, and etiquette to name a few. The family begins to feel pushed more and more out of their comfort zone as the environment escalates from friendly to hostile, and makes the family (and the audience) question how much more niceties they can maintain.

The film quickly escalates at the beginning of the third act and we crash quickly into the final devastating 20 minutes of Speak No Evil. The family quickly realize that their pleasantries on being good guests were all in vain…and that their fates are now sealed. Fair warning, the final moments of this film are truly disturbing and very hard to stomach, and I would not scoff at anyone that could not finish the final act.

When writing began, director/writer Christian Tafdrup had already had the intention of creating the “most disturbing film in Danish history” with his co-writer brother Mads and actually found it quite difficult to find actors who would participate after reading the final pages of the script. The story itself is actually based on a childhood experience Tafdrup had with his parents where they reconnected with a German family they met while on vacation. Needless to say, their experience was not as intense as Speak No Evil, but it did leave an impression on Tafdrup.

Speak No Evil creates an allegorical take on the concept of politeness. The story begs us to question, “How much would you put up with for the sake of civility?” The family throughout this film is constantly pushed to their limits on what they consider normal and have to question whether they are okay with the cultural differences being presented. This point is drilled down in the third act, with Patrick’s response to Bjørn questioning why they are doing what they are doing being, “Because you let me.”

Credit: Shudder

While intentional or not, another theme the story deconstructs is of being in an abusive relationship. Patrick is the perfect manipulator in this story, and van Huêt plays the role on point. Patrick is constantly pushing the boundaries of Bjørn and Louise, seemingly waiting for a response but when received, apologizes and pushes blame outward. Patrick also continually emasculates the family and moreover Bjørn with his aggressive bravado, seemingly to intimidate them into submission. This coincides perfectly with an abusive relationship, the victim feeling strung out and pushed to their limits and then gaslit when they finally gain the courage to speak out, only to feel like the bad guy in the end. Because of this, the family continues to stay thinking that if they only understand Patrick and Karin more that these conflicts will subside which we eventually find out is furthest from the truth.

Along with the great acting and screenwriting, Speak No Evil has beautiful cinematography. The Netherlands provides beautifully spacious scenery and creates a feeling of isolation, similar to the setting of Midsommar. The scoring has a beautiful orchestral element to it in the first and second half to emphasize this grandeur setting, but falls silent in the third to coincide with the growing tension.

This being a more arthouse leaning film, there are a lot of great things to be said about this film when it comes to the cinematography and acting. Yet throughout the film as a viewer you do have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit, and these parts also affect the acting of said scenes. One of the biggest is after the reveal of the third act Bjørn has time to tell his wife what is going on but fails to do so, which basically leads into the rest of the movie happening. When confronted with the things Bjørn saw I find it very hard to believe in a realistic situation (which this was trying to be) that he would not tell Louise. The pacing itself of the film, while a slow burn, does take quite a bit longer than needed. The second half of the second act does feel to slog down quite a bit, and seems to repeat the tropes of the late first and early second acts.

Speak No Evil does exactly what it sets out to do though. This movie is disturbing. This movie will leave a pit in your stomach. This movie is what one would call “a trainwreck in slow motion.” Speak No Evil leaves an impression, whether good or not is up to the viewer to decide, but be ready to have a cleansing movie to watch after this heavy film.

Speak No Evil is currently streaming on Shudder.

Watch the trailer for Speak No Evil below.