Directed by Christian Tafdrup Written by Christian Tafdrup & Mads Tafdrup Starring Morten Burian, Sidsel Siam Koch, Fedja van Huêt, Karina Smulders Unrated Runtime: 97 minutes Streams exclusviely on Shudder, September 15th

by Justin Howard Query, Staff Writer

One might agree that once you've discovered marriage, family, and the comfortable joys of life, finding new friends with which to share your experiences might become rare. After all, you have all that you thought you needed. But for those adventurous enough to open themselves up to the opportunities that might come from meeting new people, a brand new world awaits. 

Such is the dilemma presented in Christian Tafdrup's Danish thriller Speak No Evil, which posits the audience in the recognizably uncomfortable company of strangers and then lays bare to them cruelties that no date night could imagine. The film is an unmerciful assault on the viewer's experiences, bringing to mind the initial awkward interchange of social introductions and exposing some psychological atrocities from which there is no return.

Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siam Koch) – a Danish couple – decide to reunite with Patrick (Fedja van Huêt) and Karen (Karina Smulders) – a Dutch couple that they met in Italy while on holiday. But what should be a perfect weekend begins to unravel as the Danes find it proportionately difficult to remain congenial as the behavior of the Dutch couple becomes increasingly more unsettling.

The film plays so carefully with bravery, especially as it relates to what one is prepared to tolerate and prepared to confront. When Bjørn is complimented for his courage in wandering the Italian streets in order to find his daughter's plush rabbit, the stage is immediately set. Bjørn will endure much – it's precisely what draws Patrick to him. Later, Bjørn's courage will be tested in very mortal ways as he's asked to sit idly by in the face of Patrick and Karen's behavior or stand up for himself and his family in a bid for their lives. Failing to do so, it must ring as prophetically poignant as the Dutch music that Patrick introduces to him at another uncomfortable moment in the film. "It Never Ends," the song sings. And as the movie careens evermore carefully into excruciating territory, a failure to talk back – to speak up – means that what assaults any of us in more everyday ways will never end. And for Bjørn and his brood, the implication is far more sinister.

Because the film's manipulation begins slowly yet visibly, as Patrick insists that vegetarian Louise partake of his roasted boar dinner. Awkward conversations over dinner expose the holes in one's political and environmental ideologies. Then there's Patrick's rather aggressive parenting skills of young Abel (Marius Damslev), who is obviously and apparently – and portentously – born without a tongue. These ingredients highlight the film’s implications that the most difficult thing to do in awkward social situations is to simply speak up, but this film intends to amplify that discomfort to terrifying magnitudes.

And there's not a weak performance to be had here. Fedja van Huêt is masterful, first as the generous host and then – methodically – as the last person with whom one would want to spend the evening. He introduces himself at first to the viewer with the perfect dosage of charm and then disarmingly discomfits the viewer as his behavior becomes more sociopathic.  Meanwhile, Morten Burian's transformation from an apologetically patient guest to that of a concerned husband and father suddenly under the realization of his own peril is brilliantly paced. No matter how much you feel that you have something in common with everyone, the film suggests, the more likely it is that every person you meet will inevitably be a complete stranger to you. And assisted at times – and at the most crucial times – by Sune Kølster's riveting score, the movie is sonically guided by ominous strings that turn an idyllic holiday into a human holocaust.

In this way, the film transforms the commonplace experience of feeling like a fish out of water when in the company of new people into an icy evening that brings back images of Funny Games (1997 or 2007 – take your pick) and The Strangers (2008). If both films were meant to comment on our unimaginable patience for disreputable people, Speak No Evil does the same, often with more cunning calculation and disquiet than its predecessors, if that can be imagined. This film will delight audiences as it asks them to consider early on how they would react in a similar situation until the film ventures into that sinister territory insinuated in the film's opening sequence. Then, it's no longer an entertaining game of Would You Rather? It's a game of life and death.

Speak No Evil is an unrelenting examination of our response to unexpected social manners, taking you first into traditional realms of social anxiety and then catapulting you into the most dire circumstances of the human experience. The film's conclusion might resonate with viewers as nihilistic storytelling that they've seen elsewhere – almost to the point of redundancy – but the journey of Speak No Evil is ultimately more provocative than the destination, exposing the viewer to a reality that nodding complacently – grinning – at a cocktail party could have murderous consequences. 

Fail to speak up in the face of adversarial social behavior … and it never ends.

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