Speak No Evil review: Strap in for an exhilarating ride with mad McAvoy, writes BRIAN VINER

Speak No Evil (15,110 mins)

Rating:

Reawakening (15, 90 mins) 

Rating:

Anyone trying to cultivate a friendship they made on holiday this summer might think twice after watching Speak No Evil. 

The film, by writer-director James Watkins, is a slick remake of the 2022 Danish film of the same title. It begins in a hotel in Tuscany, where a buttoned-up American family — Ben (Scoot McNairy), Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) — are befriended by extrovert, souped-up Englishman Paddy (James McAvoy), his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their son Ant (Dan Hough).

Ant has communication ‘issues’, apparently on account of being born with a short tongue, although this is one of those movies in which nothing is as it seems and we know it from the start. Yet still it whisks us along on an increasingly exhilarating ride.

Alix West Lefier, Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy in Speak No Evil, directed by James Watkins

There’s a faint hiss of comedy throughout, like gas escaping from somewhere although you’re not sure where

James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi as Paddy and Ciara respectively

The Americans live in London, and visit their new-found pals at their home in the West Country, where by increments their hosts seem a little eccentric, if not downright weird, if not full-on deranged.

There’s a faint hiss of comedy throughout, like gas escaping from somewhere although you’re not sure where, plus some wry lines — ‘our normal is not their normal!’ — about the differences between Americans and Brits.

There’s also a gentle moral to what, by the end, is a pretty unhinged story: much like the green liqueur that tasted so good with a suntan, holiday friendships don’t always travel well.

Reawakening is an intelligent, intense drama about working-class Londoners John and Mary

Writer-director Virginia Gilbert doesn’t quite succeed in keeping everything credible, but the excellent performances keep it on track

Reawakening is an intelligent, intense drama about working-class Londoners John and Mary (superbly played by Jared Harris and Juliet Stevenson), whose daughter Clare has been missing for ten years, having run away when she was 14.

Then Clare (Erin Doherty) turns up, or at least Mary seems sure it’s her — although John is certain it isn’t. 

Writer-director Virginia Gilbert doesn’t quite succeed in keeping this wholly credible (who wouldn’t recognise their 14-year-old child at 24?), but the excellent performances keep it on track.